On Tuesday night the Sky View High School Lady Bobcats beat down the visiting Highland Rams in a 70-32 first round win of the UHSAA Girl’s Basketball State Tournament and punched their ticket to Salt Lake Community College with the win.

The lopsided score was put in the scoring books with no assistance of a scouting report or game film.

“We aren’t much for scouting,” head coach Paul Hansen said. “We did what we would normally do and played Highland sight unseen. It worked out well for us.”

Hansen, a Senior at Sky View, ended the night with 17 points, six assists, four steals and controlled the tempo of the game for practically the entire night. Head coach Paul Hansen was extremely complementary of Hansen’s play.

“Nicole has done a super job this entire season,” Hansen said. “She sees the floor better than any other high school player I’ve seen. Her assists tonight probably put her in the top 10 all time in the state of Utah for assists.”

Hansen wasn’t Sky View’s only weapon firing on all cylinders Tuesday. Aubry Boehme tacked on 16 points, eight offensive rebounds and four steals as well. Overall, Sky View tallied up 21 steals and 20 offensive rebounds.

Sky View seemed able to move the ball up and down the floor and expose Highland’s inability to break in on passing lanes. The Hansen-Boehme tandem played were lethal both high and low and executed several pick-and-roll plays. When the high-low pass didn’t work as well as planned, Boehme simply muscled her way to the bucket in the post and scored practically at will.

Sky View also held a large margin between offensive and defensive rebounds. The Lady Bobcats pulled down 20 offensive rebounds and 8 defensive rebounds on the night. The large difference can probably be attributed to the fact that Sky View took many, many more shot attempts than the Rams, who seemed to have a hard enough time pressing into their own end of the floor. Sky View’s defense was simply too much for Highland to overcome. The Bobcats varied the looks they gave to Highland, but the most irritating scheme for Highland was the full-court press. At least half of Highland’s turnovers came off the full-court press defense, and Sky View cashed in on those turnovers to score a load of fast break points.

Hansen said the press worked better than expected.

“When you’re in the press, you’re not necessarily trying to steal the ball,” he said. “You’re just trying to slow them down. Our defense played well tonight. They’re a great rebounding team. They’re a big team and a wide team, but we had had some good rebounds there too.”

The only lead Highland was able to hold came in the very first few minutes of the game. Highland scored first and got the early lead, but those two points were the only ones scored in the first quarter. Sky View went on a 16-0 run through the final seven minutes of the first quarter, and Highland never came close to recovering. Sky View scored a monstrous 27 points in the second quarter to Highland’s 12.

“We were a bit slow out of the gate,” Hansen said. “but we picked it back up. We played really well tonight.”

The students in attendance seemed to enjoy themselves well enough. A small pocket of Sky View High students started up a much quieter version of the infamous “Winning team-Losing team” USU Spectrum chant near the end of the game. Highland, on the other hand, who had brought their entire cheer squad, had little to cheer about at the end of this one.

With the loss, Highland is eliminated and their season is over. Sky View will continue down the road to a state championship and face off at Salt Lake Community College next Thursday morning. Hansen said the game will most likely be between Sky View and the Snow Canyon Warriors of St. George.

UPDATE: Sky View will play Snow Canyon Warriors on Thursday, Feb. 25 at 4:00 p.m. at the Taylorsville Redwood Campus (Map to Campus).