12:00 AM, Jan. 21, 2012
| CEDAR CITY - The last two times Hurricane visited Canyon View, the Tigers came in with everyone expecting the Region 9 front runners to easily handle the last-place Falcons.
Both times the Falcons crashed Hurricane's party and stunned the Tigers with hard-fought victories.
Hurricane came into Friday night's match up with Canyon View intent on not letting it happen a third time.
The defense did its part to keep the Falcons at bay, but it was Hurricane's offense that put Canyon View into an early hole and the Tigers cruised to an easy 58-44 win.
"We really made a conscious effort to approach this region one game at a time," said Hurricane coach Brian Vaifanua. "This region is very competitive so we're not going to take anyone lightly. We're just going to focus on the team we're playing next. That's what we set our sights on."
Added Colton Marshall: "We knew we had to play better defense. We felt like they had some great shooters outside so defense was the biggest thing."
The victory extended Hurricane's winning steak to three games, and improved its record to 10-4 on the year, 4-2 in Region 9 action.
The loss was the fifth straight for the Falcons, who remain without a Region 9 win and must now try to quickly turn things around to have any hope of climbing out of last place.
The task will not be easy as Canyon View hosts Cedar on Wednesday, a team that is on the upswing, winning four straight after having a rough go in the early part of region play.
"We're going to be ready for (Cedar)" Canyon View coach Robbie Potter said. "I told (my players) 'you have a formidable task in front of yourselves because we're on a five-game slide We've got to get back in the battle and do it right now.'"
The Tigers showed they came to win by jumping out to a 15-4 lead in the opening quarter behind five points from Marshall, who finished with a game-high 15 points.
The Falcons helped Hurricane's cause by shooting 2-of-11 in the stanza, including a stretch of nearly five minutes without a bucket.
Canyon View finally got some offense going in the second quarter with seven points from Chad Corry and six from Kameron King as the Falcons went on a 13-5 run to narrow the Tiger's lead to five points.
Hurricane led 31-21 at the break and the teams spent the final two quarters trading rallies as the Tigers built a 39-25 lead only to have the Falcons trim it to 47-40 with two minutes left.
But the Tigers' foul shooting - which proved to be their undoing in last year's loss to Canyon View - is what kept them ahead this time as they went 12-of-14 from the foul line in the fourth quarter and hit 19-of-22 overall to cement the victory and put them in a tie for third place with Cedar.
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