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Ogden • Springville never gave up. Not in its one-point win against Skyline in the opening round of the Class 4A boys' basketball tournament. Not in the quarterfinal stunner against Woods Cross that featured a game-winning bank shot in overtime. Not in the semifinals when Hillcrest was making a late surge.

And certainly not in the state championship against highly favored and top-ranked Olympus, which was searching for its second consecutive title.

Seth Mortensen swished home a game-tying 3-pointer at the end of regulation that allowed the Red Devils to stun the Titans in double overtime 81-79 to win their first state championship since 1958.

"We've grown up that way," Mortensen said about the resiliency of the group. "We've always been the smaller team. We just have to work harder than everyone else. That's what we've done throughout the tournament. We just never give up, even when we're down. We just never give up."

The Red Devils (21-5), often overshadowed in the conversation about powers in 4A, never were ranked throughout the year, but they started to gel at the end of January, when they closed the regular season on an eight-game winning streak.

"If there's anything that says what happened to this state tournament to this team is a little bit of luck with a lot of hard work," Springville coach Justin Snell said. "It's been fantastic that these guys don't give up. They just keep going no matter what."

Snell said the coaching staff kept trying to instill a positive attitude in the program, and it paid off.

"They are teenagers. We just try to be as positive as possible," Snell said. "We try to walk that line, but it's really just who they are. They love each other. They've been best friends since fifth grade. It's just who they are."

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