Panthers play for pride in win over Canyon View

ST. GEORGE  Sometimes a team has fight through adversity to show how much heart it has. Pine View did just that Friday and bounced back from a demoralizing loss to Dixie with a 75-64 victory over Canyon View.

Kody WIlstead, shown in this file photo from Feb. 6, 2013, helped Pine View defeat Canyon View tonight | Photo by Chris Caldwell, St. George News

The Panthers were eliminated from the playoff hunt after losing to Dixie on Wednesday, but showed they had something even more important to play for than a postseason bidtheir pride.

“I’m very proud of our kids,” Pine View coach Darrell Larsen said. “They came out and showed their true character. We talked about it a lot, as far as having nothing to play for but your pride.”

Jack Bangerter powered the Panthers attack and exploded for a game-high 26 points. Bangerter was red-hot from outside, knocking down six triples and making sure the momentum stayed with the home team. In one crucial stretch in the third quarter, the junior sharp-shooter knocked down consecutive 3-pointers to help put away the Falcons for good after they had cut the lead to 34-30 and were closing in.

Pine View then clamped down on defense and outscored the Falcons 25-10 in the third to push the lead to 22 points after three quarters. After that, it was simply a matter of running the time off the clock.

“We stepped up our defense a lot,” Bangerter said. “[Brady Oliver] on their team was going in the first half. We slowed him down a little bit and played tough defense. That got our offense going and defense led to offense.”

Oliver led Canyon View with 19 points, but only managed three in the second half. Nate Jarvis added 16 points and Chad Corry struggled the from the field for the second straight game to finish with 13. The Falcons ultimately turned the game over to Pine View in the first half and struggled to keep possession long enough to get into a rhythm.

The game turned chippy in the second half and two different sets of double technical fouls were handed out as the refs fought to keep control of the game. In a game that saw the combined foul total near the half-century mark, both teams reached the double bonus with more than half of the quarter remaining in both the first and second half.

“It was just two teams playing hard,” Larsen said. “They want to win just as bad as we do. They didn’t hit some shots early and we did and that was the name of the game.”

Dallin Milne finished with 17 points and Kody Wilstead added seven for the Panthers, who improve to 5-6 in region play and finish the season at home against Cedar on Tuesday.

Canyon View falls to 3-8 and closes out the season at Desert Hills on Tuesday.

Boxscore: cvpv2813

Email: [email protected]

Twitter: @k_seeg

Copyright St. George News, SaintGeorgeUtah.com LLC, 2013, all rights reserved.

Free News Delivery by Email

Would you like to have the day's news stories delivered right to your inbox every evening? Enter your email below to start!

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.