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American Fork • Bingham opened the Utah Elite-Eight Tournament with a 66-51 win over Corner Canyon on Thursday afternoon as senior big man Branden Carlson finished with 22 points and nine rebounds to lead the Miners over the Chargers.

In a game much closer than the final score would indicate, Bingham had to stave off numerous runs from Corner Canyon in the second half in order to walk away with a victory.

After a ho-hum first half in which the Miners controlled the majority of pace and play, the Chargers came out firing in the third quarter. Junior Ammon Jensen completed a rare four-point play while senior Michael Scheffner netted a pair of 3's during a 17-9 run that cut the Bingham lead to 36-34.

After a timeout from Bingham coach Jake Schroeder, the Miners responded with a 9-0 run to retake control of the game going into the fourth quarter.

"We've got to give [Corner Canyon] a lot of credit, they battled," Schroeder said. "They gave us everything we wanted today. It's good for our guys to have to grind one out like that, but I hope that our guys now realize that there are some good teams in this tournament that aren't going to quit."

True to Schroeder's words, the Chargers refused to quit in the fourth quarter as they mounted yet another comeback attempt. A 10-4 run by Corner Canyon to begin the fourth got them within five of the Miners, but the combined efforts of Carlson and guards Lleyton Parker and Dason Youngblood were too much to overcome as the Miners finished the game with a 17-7 run.

Carlson, a University of Utah commit, finished 8 of 12 from the floor, and his powerful presence in the paint gave the Miners some easy shot attempts when they needed to stop the Corner Canyon comebacks. While the Chargers made a valiant attempt to keep Carlson out of the paint, it's nearly impossible to stop all 6-foot-11 of him from getting to his favored spots.

"Brandon is doing a good job for us," Schroeder said. "But, we've got to do a better job of getting him the ball in spots where he can be more successful. His athleticism and his motor will take him a long way in this game, we're going to keep going to him and hopefully if we can't get it to him then our guards will do their jobs"

The Miners did have to lean on their shooters in stretches when Corner Canyon denied entry passes to Carlson. But, in the end, that's partly why Carlson thought he was able to score in bunches in the second half.

"[Corner Canyon's defense] didn't change our game plan really," Carlson said. "If I'm open they'll dump it into me in the post, if not then we have some great shooters outside. We have great wings that can do their thing outside, it's not a problem for us. After that, it was nice to be able to go down and do my thing in the post. We ended the game pretty well."

Now with another game looming against Davis, the winner of Game 2, Carlson and the Miners know they'll have to come out with more fire and energy if they want to advance to the Elite-Eight final on Saturday.

"Earlier in the game we didn't close out on shooters, we weren't in our stances and we just didn't have as much energy as we should have," Carlson said. "We let them get a run on us, but in the second half we really started to push it. We've got to get some rest tonight and come in tomorrow with some high energy, we've got to come out ready to play and prepared to play better defense than we did today."

Davis 61m Lehi 53 • Davis pick-pocketed Lehi twice in the final minute and used some late free throws to upend the Pioneers. Rich Stucki led the Darts with 14 points while teammate Ben Rigby added another 13. Davis will take on Bingham in the second Friday at 8:15 p.m.

American Fork 71, Bountiful 35 • The Cavemen used a balanced offensive performance and stifling defense in blowing out the Braves.

Mason Warenski and Dylan Simpson each scored 12 points to lead the Cavemen. American Fork will play in the first semifinal Friday at 6:35 p.m. against Copper Hills.

Copper Hills 87, Olympus 73 • Copper Hills knocked off the defending 4A champion Titans behind Stockton Shorts' 41-point performance. Shorts finished the first half with 27 points, but his team led only 39-35 at the break. He continued to dominate in the second half and big contributions from Rowland Bolman (16 points) and Ben Baysinger (10 points) helped the defending Elite-Eight champs finish off the Titans. —

Storylines

R Utah commit Branden Carlson has 22 points and nine rebounds for Bingham.

• Bingham guards Lleyton Parker and Dason Youngblood combine for 24 points and eight rebounds.

• Corner Canyon's Michael Scheffner leads all scorers with 29 points.