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West Valley City • Having the referees overrule the clock operators, vacate a second from the clock, and call for the final horn may have been kind of an odd way to end a tight state championship game, but you can bet that the Pine View Panthers wouldn't trade it for anything.

In yet another close game between region rivals who knew each other all too well, Pine View won the Class 3A boys' basketball championship with a 46-43 victory over Dixie on Saturday.

The two teams had each won Region 9 battles against each other in the regular season. The margin of both of those contests was one point.

"It feels like a dream come true, it really does," said Panthers senior Kody Wilstead, who postponed his church mission and early graduation in order to get one more shot at a state championship.

Wilstead, a BYU recruit for football, led Pine View to the 3AA gridiron title game in 2013 and the semifinals this past fall, but neither ended with a first-place trophy for the Panthers.

"We knew that [the Flyers] liked close games. They liked every game close," Wilstead said. "We just tried to weather the storm, and we were able to."

Wilstead, after Dixie's Jake Hawes gave the Flyers a 43-42 lead with 1:10 left, put in a shot at the 56-second mark and hit a free throw to put Pine View (23-2) up 45-43.

With five seconds remaining, Garrett Bowker hit another foul shot for the final 3-point margin. Bowker missed the second try, but Wilstead grabbed an offensive rebound and retreated to the right corner.

An official then ruled that the clock had not started when Wilstead had first touched the ball, and one final second on the scoreboard was wiped clean.

And that's when the official celebration was triggered.

"We'll take it any way it goes," said Chaz Petersen, who finished with 18 points. "It's a state championship. That's what we've been working for. We pulled through — that's all that matters is that we won."

Dixie (20-6), which was led by Tyler Bennett's 14 points, had won a quarterfinal thriller over Bear River on a last-second shot by Bennett on Thursday. Then, Friday night, the Flyers won a marathon four-overtime semifinal over Desert Hills.

Early in the second half, it finally looked like Dixie was spent. That is, until, Bennett helped rally the Flyers from a 13-point deficit by personally registering a 12-0 run.

"We really got on a good run and finished strong; going into four overtimes and for them to respond … We got ourselves down — and, still, they fought hard to give themselves a chance," Dixie coach Ryan Cuff said. "I'm just so proud of them."

Trailing by two, Bennett had one last chance to tie as he drove the lane for Dixie. But Pine View's Kendrick Spencer, who doesn't have a fully formed left hand and has had three surgeries since birth to elongate his fingers, poked the ball away from Bennett with his right hand.

Bowker ended up with the ball and those final free throws with five seconds left.

"I just tried to stay in front of him, so he didn't get an easy bucket," Spencer said. "He's a great player. But our coaches said he likes to go left and spin back right, so that's how I tried to play it."

Pine View's Darrell Larsen credited school administrators for giving him a chance to get a state title in his seventh year as the school's head coach.

"I know Pine View's an old school, but once Desert Hills opened up, we had to rebuild," Larsen said. "I don't know my record, I've never counted it up, but I know in those first few years, it was probably more losses than wins.

"Our administration stuck with the picture we painted, and it's nice to see the result," he added. —

Pine View 46, Dixie 43

R Pine View's Chaz Peterson scores 18 and Kody Wilstead adds 15 in the win for the Panthers.

• Wilstead's 3-point play with 56 seconds left gives Pine View the lead for good.

• Dixie, which had won a four-overtime semifinal the night before against Desert Hills, was led by junior Tyler Bennett's 14 points.