Woods Cross » There was a window of time in which Woods Cross could have closed the gap -- albeit a small one. All the Wildcats needed was to make a layup or a couple more free throws to change the momentum in the last minute of the game.

But Woods Cross never found its shot and Region 6-leading Olympus was able to hold on for a 50-44 road victory by making some clutch free throws.

"We're going to get teams' best shot," said Olympus coach Matt Barnes, whose team holds on to their No. 1 ranking in Class 4A. "Woods Cross will play you hard. We missed free throws in the fourth quarter and let them hang around but we made enough defensive plays for the win."

The Titans had trouble finding a rhythm offensively throughout the game despite Woods Cross being without its leading scorer in post player Austin Bankowski. He was on the sideline nursing a stress fracture in his foot.

Without their big presence inside, the Wildcats stressed going after loose balls and hustling for rebounds.

"Austin would have made it so we had a mismatch somewhere," said Woods Cross Todd Street said. "But I'm really proud of the way our kids played. They played basketball for 32 minutes."

Woods Cross threw the Titans off with multiple looks on defense, pressing and relying on a scrappy zone defense in the first half and going to a pesky man-to-man defense in the second.

And in the first half, Mark Evans -- who took over in the post for the Wildcats -- kept Woods Cross afloat with 14 of its 20 points. He scored his points on mostly layups and putbacks and the Wildcats trailed just 22-20 at halftime.

But the Titans had their best offensive stretch at the beginning of the third quarter, when Connor Brady drilled a three-pointer, picked off a pass and scored a layup followed by another one to give Olympus a 29-20 lead. That was just the beginning of a 14-3 run.

"They did a good job of getting us out of rhythm," said Brady, who finished with 12 points. "It was just a grind the whole game. We're just happy to get a win on the road."

The Titans had a 40-29 lead heading into the fourth quarter but Ryan Anderson helped lead a comeback for Woods Cross and a three by Matt Stephenson with 1:04 remaining cut the lead to 47-44. But the Wildcats didn't get that next bucket to fully swing the momentum.

"I wished we could have finished on some baskets," Street said. "We couldn't will a ball in but they're a skilled group and they had bigger, taller and longer guys."

mthach@sltrib.com