Third seeded Snowflake advanced to the quarterfinal round of the Division III state basketball tournament with an 81-59 win over No. 19 Florence on Friday afternoon at the Walkup Skydome in Flagstaff.
The Lobos built an eight-point lead at the end of the first, then pushed that margin to 15 at the half. In the third the teams played evenly, but early in the fourth Snowflake went on a nice stretch to widen the gap and get the comfortable win to advance to Prescott Vally.
“The guys played well. We went on a nice run early in the fourth to kind of put things out of reach,” said Coach Andy Wood.
Chase Walden led with 23 points. Tanner Yellowhair added 16; Jake Shumway, 13; Rick Shumway, 10; Dustin Baldwin, 6; Doug Brimhall, 4; Braccin Tanner, 3; and Dallin Merrell, Ty Reidhead and Reggie Peterson, 2 each.
Florence 11 15 18 15 59
Snowflake 19 22 18 22 81
If the Lobos prevailed over No. 22 Scottsdale Christian in Monday afternoon’s matchup at Tim’s Toyota Center in Prescott Valley, they would advance to the final four, where they would meet either 10th ranked Parker or the second overall seed, Gilbert Christian, at 4:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 24. A win in that contest would put them into the title game on Saturday night at Jobing.com arena in Glendale. Scottsdale Christian upset both Empire and Fountain Hills, last year’s runner-up, in their first two rounds. The Lobos went into Monday’s contest with an overall mark of 27-4.
