High school basketball: 5A championship preview — Lone Peak vs. West Jordan

WEST VALLEY CITY — At the rate Lone Peak is dismantling Region 3 teams at the E-Center, it might be natural for West Jordan to approach their imminent meeting with the Knights in the 5A championship game with a little trepidation.

Both Riverton and Bingham were expected to give the defending champs a run for their money. Both teams ended up getting thoroughly schooled by the Knights.

Still, if the Jaguars are supposed to feel scared, they are doing an excellent job of disguising their true feelings.

"We just need to come out prepared," senior guard Jordan Weirick said. "We haven't played Lone Peak yet, so it's a good challenge for us and them."

West Jordan has an excellent reason to feel good about its chances for claiming the 5A championship trophy. The Jaguars have won eight straight games and seven of those eight wins have come by double digit margins. They have beaten their three tournament opponents by an average of nearly 14 points per victory.

But as dominant as West Jordan has been, Lone Peak has owned opponents for even longer. The Knights have won 20 straight games against in-state opponents and have claimed their three tournament victories by an average margin of 16.3 points per game. The bigger margins of victory have come against Bingham and Riverton.

Lone Peak coach Quincy Lewis doesn't necessarily think that it is because his team just matches up with Region 3 opponents well. He attributes more to his own team's evolution in the tournament.

"I don't know if it is anything about Region 3," Lewis said. "It's just us getting better and better with each game in the tournament."

Indeed, Lewis anticipates that the title game will be a good matchup because the two teams mirror one another in so many ways.

Both teams like to run the floor and excel at creating transition baskets. The Knights rank first offensively in 5A with 71 points per game. West Jordan is fifth at 60.8 points per game. Individually, Tyler Haws leads 5A in scoring with 23.8 points per game. Weirick (14.5) and Rayes Gallegos (16.5) both rank among the top 10 scorers.

Defensively, the teams are about even. The Jaguars allow 48 points per game. Lone Peak gives up slightly more at 50.8 per contest.

Perhaps the one place where Lone Peak holds a definite trump card is experience. Senior leaders like Haws and Dillon Smith played important roles on both previous championship teams and it shows at different moments.