The Corner Canyon Chargers will face off against the Copper Hills Grizzlies at 7:00 p.m. on Friday. Expect the scorekeeper to be kept busy: if their previous games are any indication, the two teams will really light up the scoreboard.
Corner Canyon is coming in fresh off a high-stakes matchup with another one of Utah's top teams: Bingham, who was ranked ninth at the time (Corner Canyon was ranked tenth). Corner Canyon fell just short of Bingham by a score of 66-63 on Friday. That makes it the first time this season the Chargers have let down their home crowd.
| 01/24/25 vs Bingham | 22 |
| 01/21/25 vs Riverton | 25 |
| 01/17/25 @ Herriman | 19 |
| 01/14/25 vs Mountain Ridge | 22 |
| 01/10/25 @ Copper Hills | 27 |
Loss or not, Corner Canyon got some senior leadership from Bryton Valdes and Noah Bendinger. Valdes went 9 of 16 on his way to 24 points and seven assists, while Bendinger posted 22 points along with five rebounds and three steals. The match was Bendinger's ninth in a row with at least ten points. Another player making a difference was Tyler Mortensen, who scored six points.
Meanwhile, Copper Hills didn't have too much breathing room in their contest against Mountain Ridge on Friday, but they still walked away with a 60-54 win.
The match pitted two dominant guards against one another in Isaiah Reiser and Landon Blackwell. Reiser had a great game and went 7 for 13 en route to 18 points. Meanwhile, Blackwell was balling out in the loss, putting up 16 points in addition to seven boards and four steals.
Copper Hills' victory bumped their record up to 11-7. As for Corner Canyon, their defeat ended a 12-game streak of wins at home dating back to last season and dropped them to 11-7.
Rebounding is likely to be a big factor in this contest: Corner Canyon hasn't given up the ball easily this season, having only averaged 8.5 turnovers per game. However, it's not like Copper Hills struggles in that department as they've been averaging only 9.2 turnovers. Given these competing strengths, it'll be interesting to see how their clash plays out.
Corner Canyon was able to grind out a solid win over Copper Hills in their previous matchup on January 10th, winning 74-65. One of the biggest obstacles the team faced in that game was Copper Hills' Jacob Curtis, who went 7 of 12 on his way to 21 points along with five rebounds and three steals. Now that he's got a second chance to win this matchup, will Corner Canyon still be able to contain Curtis? There's only one way to find out.
