Defending champ Cedar girls top final rankings as state 4A playoff pairings revealed

February 15, 2020 Utah Channel 3

CEDAR CITY — The Region 9 girls basketball season wrapped up Friday night, with Cedar finishing unbeaten in region play for the second-straight year.

Japrix Weaver of Cedar takes a shot from the baseline at Snow Canyon, St. George, Utah, Feb. 14, 2020 | Photo by Jeff Richards, St. George News / Cedar City News

The Reds’ season-ending road win was a 64-38 defeat of Snow Canyon, with Cedar senior Japrix Weaver scoring a career-high 31 points and fellow senior Mayci Torgerson adding 15. The Warriors had led off the game with a 5-0 lead three minutes in, but Cedar went on a 15-0 run to take a 15-5 lead at the end of the first quarter. The Reds then stayed comfortably ahead the rest of the game.

Cedar also secured the top overall seed for the upcoming 4A state playoffs. According to the Utah High School Activities Association’s final RPI rankings released Saturday afternoon, five of the eight Region 9 schools will get byes in the first round, while Hurricane, Canyon View and Crimson Cliffs will each play opening-round playoff games on the road next Wednesday. See schedule below for details.

The victory over Snow Canyon improved Cedar’s region record to 14-0. Last year, Cedar went 12-0 in region and 25-0 overall, winning the school’s first-ever 4A state girls basketball title. The Reds are 20-2 this season, with the only losses coming during the December preseason, when Cedar lost on the road at Bishop Gorman in Las Vegas, 61-52, and at Bingham, a 6A school in Salt Lake County, 46-43, one week later.

Despite those two losses, Cedar still finished the season atop the final 4A RPI rankings.

Cedar, along with the other 10 teams in the top 11, will have a bye in the first round, while the 4A teams ranked 12 through 21 will play each other next Wednesday on the home courts of the higher seeded schools. The winners of those five contests will then join the top 11 teams in the round of 16, with those games scheduled to be played Saturday, Feb. 22 at 7 p.m., with the higher-seeded teams hosting.

The eight winners of next Saturday’s games will then advance to play in the three-day state 4A tournament, scheduled for Feb. 27-29 at Weber State University in Ogden.

Following are the initial playoff games for each of the eight Region 9 teams, listed in order of their final RPI ranking:

No. 1 Cedar has a first-round bye. Next Saturday at 7 p.m., the Cedar Reds will host the winner of Wednesday’s game between No. 16 Mountain Crest and No. 17 Tooele.
No. 3 Desert Hills has a first-round bye. Next Saturday at 7 p.m., the Thunder will host the winner of Wednesday’s game between No. 14 Hurricane and No. 19 Ogden.
No. 6 Snow Canyon has a first-round bye. Next Saturday at 7 p.m., the Warriors will host region rival Dixie Flyers, ranked No. 11 in the RPI.
No. 7 Pine View has a first-round bye. Next Saturday at 7 p.m., the Panthers will host No. 10 Stansbury, which also has a first-round bye.
No. 11 Dixie has a first-round bye. The Flyers will play at No. 6 Snow Canyon next Saturday.
No. 14 Hurricane will host No. 10 Stansbury in the first round Wednesday night at 7 p.m. at Hurricane.
No. 15 Canyon View will host No. 18 Cedar Valley in the first round Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Canyon View.
No. 20 Crimson Cliffs will play No. 13 Uintah in the first round Wednesday at 7 p.m. at Uintah High in Vernal.

The full 4A tournament bracket, courtesy of MaxPreps, is embedded below. Initially, only the seed numbers were listed, but the bracket information will automatically update as the names of teams and results are filled in. Refresh page to see the latest version.

2020 UHSAA Girls State Basketball Championships Class 4A(function(d){var mp = d.createElement(‘script’),h=d.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)[0];mp.type=’text/javascript’;mp.async=true;mp.src=’https://www.maxpreps.com/includes/js/widget/widget.compressed.js’;h.appendChild(mp);})(document);

Final Region 9 girls basketball regular season standings, with final 4A RPI rankings

Cedar 14-0 (20-2). RPI ranking: 1
Desert Hills 11-3 (18-3). RPI ranking: 3
Pine View 10-4 (15-7). RPI ranking: 7
Snow Canyon 8-6 (14-6). RPI ranking: 6
Dixie 5-9 (10-11). RPI ranking: 11
Hurricane 5-9 (7-15). RPI ranking: 14
Canyon View 3-11 (7-15). RPI ranking: 15
Crimson Cliffs 0-14 (1-20). RPI ranking: 20