MERIDIAN - The final score isn’t going to show it.
But the Blackfoot boys basketball team gave top-ranked Hillcrest all it could handle right up until the last two and a half minutes of the game. There’s a reason why the Knights are the two-time defending Class 4A state champions, though.
They ultimately pulled away in a 73-59 win over the Broncos in the opening round of the 4A State Tournament Thursday at Rocky Mountain High School.
Hillcrest (18-6) will play Bishop Kelly (19-5) in the semifinals at 2 p.m. Friday inside the Idaho Center.
“We’re never going to give up,” said Hillcrest senior Ike Sutton who tallied a game-high 23 points. “That’s been our thing. They get a bucket. So what? We’re coming down and we’re playing our game, staying solid and getting our chances.”
Blackfoot (11-14) takes on Minico (13-11) in the consolation round at 2 p.m. Friday right back at Rocky Mountain High.
“I’m proud of the kids for believing,” Blackfoot head coach Clint Arave said. “It’s really hard to believe against a team like that.
“This is personal, but I feel like they’re the best team in the state.”
And Hillcrest certainly looked the part early on.
It led by double digits for most of the first half, including by as much as 16 points at 26-10 following a deep 3 from Matthew Trenkle a little more than a minute into the second quarter. The Knights looked like they were going to have a big lead at the break when 6-foot-7-inch Isaac Davis completed the old-fashioned 3-point play to make it a 32-17 game with four minutes and 33 seconds remaining.
But the Broncos (11-14), who had already lost twice to them during the regular season, including by 33 points, decided they weren’t going to go down like that.
Senior Sy Callister’s 3-pointer with 29 seconds remaining, all of a sudden brought them to within four at 34-30.
Titan Larsen did hit a 3 for Hillcrest with three ticks left, but Blackfoot had seemingly all the momentum going into the locker room.
“I think we just thought we could coast from there. And you can’t do that at the state tournament,” Hillcrest coach Dave Austin said. “You have to have that foot on the pedal all the time and I think we let off a little bit.
“You would think after our fourth year in a row being here, we would have learned some of those things, but they’re 16-17-year-old kids.”
The Broncos refused to go away, too.
They got as close as two at 37-35 on a layin by sophomore Austin Arave in the opening minute of the third quarter. Blackfoot actually had a chance to tie the game, but Arave and senior Dax Whitney both missed their 3-point shots.
But it never let the Knights lead by more than eight points for the rest of the quarter and went into the fourth down by just five at 52-47. The Broncos held Davis, a BYU signee, to just two points in that period alone. He had 12 points in the first half.
However, they didn’t have an answer for Sutton.
The point guard had 14 of his points in the second half, including nine in the fourth.
When Blackfoot cut the deficit down to four at 53-49 a minute in, Sutton drove right through the heart of its defense for a layup. He was then the one who almost immediately answered after the Broncos got within six at 60-54 with just 3:55.
“He’s just done that for us all year long,” Austin said. “He’s so competitive and just has that fire in him all the time that he will step up when need be and he did it tonight.”
Colby Bodkin did hit a deep shot from beyond-the-arc to bring the Broncos back within six at 63-57 with just 2:37 left. But they were outscored 10-2 the rest of the way following five missed shots and a turnover.
“What really hurt us is we had to climb that mountain,” Clint Arave said. “When we had to climb that mountain, it was like, ‘We got to the top of the mountain and what do we have left?’”
Bodkin led with 16 points on 70% shooting. The senior, who is the only returning starter from last year's third-place game, also had four rebounds, three assists and a pair of steals.
Austin Arave and Carter Anderson also reached double figures with 13 and 11 points, respectively, for the Broncos, who made back-to-back state tournament appearances for the first time in 16 years.
“It just proves who they are,” Clint Arave said. “They’re all in on whatever we do.
“We were going to try to beat them with heart because we weren’t going to beat them with skill. We’ve been fighting for this forever. We’re together. It’s us. It’s Blackfoot. We kind of felt that way, especially since nobody gave us a chance.”
Davis (19), Larsen (11) and Talan Taylor (10) all scored in double figures for the Knights, who are trying to become just the second 4A team ever to three-peat. Preston (2016-18) is the only one.
“We’ve been talking about it all year long. Pressure is a privilege,” Austin said. “We’ve earned this. We’re at this point where we know the target on our back is big. It’s us against the world. You saw it here tonight. Everybody was cheering against us and that’s fine. We like that.”
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