Pine View gets defensive in win over Cavemen

ST. GEORGE — The Pine View Panthers are 7-3 because they have relied on their offense to outscore opponents. Panther coach Chris Allred knows the time will come when defense will have to dictate.

Friday night in the Panthers' 58-44 victory over American Fork, the Panthers made huge defensive strides. For the first time all year, the Panthers held their opponent to less than 50 points.

"This was the kind of game we were after defensively," Allred said. "Throughout the season we have been good in the first half and in the second half we haven't played with the same intensity."

The Panthers, the No. 2 team in Class 3A, held American Fork (5-2), the third-ranked team in Class 4A, to just 43 percent shooting for the game and held 6-foot-10 center Stefan Zimmerman to 15 points en route to the 14-point victory.

"Defensively, I thought we did a tremendous job," Allred said. "We knew he (Zimmerman) would get his 15 points and we didn't want him to get any more. If we could limit the other four and keep them to their averages or below we thought we could outscore them." Pine View senior Andy Palmer turned in a tremendous game with 27 points — 18 in the second half and 10 in the third quarter. Brad Garrett, the classification's third leading scorer at 23.7 points a game, was held to just 15.

"We haven't been coaching as smart as we needed to in the first nine games," Allred said. "Tonight we finally got him (Palmer) in the places we've needed to be successful and tougher to defend. I think that went a long way to him having the game he is capable of." The Panthers, who hit 6-of-7 three-pointers in the first half, led by as many as 16 points on back-to-back-to-back three-pointers by Jake Madsen (2) and Palmer in the second quarter. They led by 11 at the half.

American Fork took advantage of three consecutive Pine View turnovers to start the half to get back into the game when Zimmerman's bucket with 3:19 left in the quarter trimmed the Panther lead to three at 36-33. That's as close as the Cavemen would get.

Palmer scored eight points in the fourth and Garrett delivered a three-point dagger midway through the fourth to build the lead to 15. They got it as high as 17.

"Tonight he (Palmer) mixed it up well between getting to the post and the perimeter, but it gave us more of an inside-outside game," Allred said. "As a team we started to look to him a little more and he did a great job getting to the basket."

Behind Zimmerman, Zac Adamson finished with 11 points for American Fork.