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West Jordan • Copper Hills needed every bit of Kate Sisler's senior leadership, plus the freshman fury of Eleyama Tafisi on Thursday night to capture a rugged 53-49 victory over Taylorsville.

The hard-fought victory sends the Grizzlies into the final regular-season game of the year with a shot to win the Region 3 title as they battle with Bingham for top spot.

"We're the number one Taylorsville fans in the state right now," said Copper Hills coach Ben Morley, who knows the Warriors travel to Bingham next week. "We've we've got to take care of our game too. We play a really good Brighton team at their place."

For now, though, the Grizzlies were more than happy to celebrate a victory where they seemed in control most of the night but could not put a good Taylorsville team away.

The Warriors came into this game on a four-game winning streak with an outside shot at gaining a piece of the league title. But, try as they might, they could not gain the lead after the first quarter. It seemed as though whenever Taylorsville was ready to make a run, Sisler hit a big 3 or Tafisi started stealing and scoring.

Though she fouled out, good things happened whenever Tafisi, a tiny but lightning quick, aggressive freshman was on the floor. She seemed to make Copper Hills' always tough pressing defense that much tougher and showed the ability to make a big shot or a 3-pointer.

"Kate always comes through in the clutch and is the most consistent," said Morley about Tafisi, who led her team with 15 points. "Eleyama has had a meteoric rise in the last couple of weeks. She is tough to guard and extremely quick. She needs to work on her decision making. But she is fearless."

Led by Finau Tonga's 18 points and great rebounding, Taylorsville never folded. They trailed 50-47 with 1:30 to play but Copper Hills gthered itself enough to stave off that one last rally.

"We knew exactly what it would be like just like we knew it would be when we went to their place," said Morley. "It will be a tough, physical game that is going to come down to who can make the most plays in the fourth quarter, and that's what happened."

Twitter @tribtomwharton —

Storylines

• Copper Hills' freshman Eleyama Tafisi scores 15 and leads the Grizzlies tough pressing defense.

• Finau Tonga scores a game-high 18 points for Taylorsville.