Bingham's suffocating defense proves too much for Northridge in state quarterfinal

Taylorsville • The Bingham Miners came in wave after wave in Thursday’s Class 6A girls’ basketball state quarterfinal.

A full 18 players saw some postseason action, and that might’ve been expected in a 25-point win.

But the Miners, intent on applying tough defense from the start against Northridge, substituted liberally even at the beginning. The Knights, suffocated by pressure that often extended to three-quarters length, were swamped early by a Bingham team that rolled to a 61-36 win.

“I knew they were going to be physical, they were going to be aggressive and try to force us to turn the ball over,” Northridge coach Joseph Christopher Smith said. “And they did a pretty good job of that.”

The game actually was close through the first half of the opening quarter as both teams struggled offensively. But Bingham’s defense started paying off in the form of turnovers, and that led to a 15-3 run to finish the period for a 17-6 lead.

The Miners then got three quick buckets, with junior Maggie McCord scoring two, in the first two minutes of the second quarter for a 16-point advantage. The closest Northridge (16-6) came after that was a dozen points.

McCord and Shanyce Makuei both tallied 11 points to lead Bingham, although 12 Miners players eventually made it into the scoring column.

“We’ve got some defenses that we try to mix in, but we just wanted to play team defense the whole way through,” Bingham coach Charron Mason said. “I didn’t want it to be just five girls. I knew it was going to take everybody, from coaches all the way through, to go and win a game.

“I just wanted everybody to feel a part of it as quickly as possible.”

Next up for Bingham is Copper Hills in a rematch of a regular-season game won by the Grizzlies — a game in which Copper Hills scored the last 24 points of the contest to overcome a late 13-point deficit.

McCord said the rematch has a little added significance to the prestige of a state semifinal game.

“We treat every game the same, but we want to win so bad,” McCord said. “We’ve just got to come together and talk about what we need to do ([ate in the game].

“That game is definitely going to help us in this next game.”

Northridge was paced by Kendell Petersen’s 10 points.

“I hate to lose, but we’ve got a group of winners in the locker room. And they did have an awesome season,” Smith said. “Best record in school history, get a playoff win, which hasn’t happened in 21 years. I’m proud of what they’ve done.”