(Leah Hogsten | The Salt Lake Tribune) Fremont's Dallin Hall (30) had 16 points and 5 rebounds. Fremont defeated Hillcrest 62-52 in the 6A High School Boys' Basketball Tournament opening game at Weber State University’s Dee Events Center in Ogden, Tuesday, Feb. 27, 2018.
Ogden • Fremont may have started out slow, but it sure finished strong, ending the game with a 13-0 run to knock off a feisty Hillcrest 62-52 in Tuesday’s opening round of the Class 6A boys’ basketball state tournament.
Dallin Hall scored 13 of his team-leading 16 points in the second half to help spark the win.
“I think we really came together as a team and started to play the same way we played in practice,” Hall said. “We know what the ultimate goal is, and now it’s on to the next one.”
Fremont started a little sluggish, falling behind 16-11 after the first quarter.
But the Silver Wolves eventually corrected those mistakes and tightened the screws defensively from then on. They also did a better job of taking care of the ball on offense.
“I don’t know if we were just trying to be too perfect or what, but I really didn’t feel like our guys were too nervous,” Fremont coach Corey Melaney said. “It was just for whatever reason it took us awhile to get going.”
Neither team managed more than a three-point lead through the majority of the second half. It wasn’t until halfway through the fourth quarter that Fremont went on its game-winning run. The goal for Fremont was to press Hillcrest and hope for some timely turnovers.
“When you press and trap, you are more likely to cause some turnovers,” Melaney said. “They were still able to kill us on some possessions, but by applying the pressure, it gave us the mental edge we needed to pull out the win.”
Brox Ashby scored 12 points and Mohammed Saif 11 points in the loss.