BY DAVID CORDERO •
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• FEBRUARY 11, 2010
| HURRICANE - Hurricane's McCrae Vaifanua is a big Kobe Bryant fan - so much so, coach Gordon Dotson joked that he banned the phrase "Los Angeles Lakers" from his practices.
But after Vaifanua's performance in the fourth quarter Wednesday night against Cedar, Dotson might feel like relaxing the moratorium for a day or two.
The Tigers junior scored all nine of his points in the final period to help boost Hurricane to a 51-43 win over the visiting Reds.
"He does a good job coming in and giving us some instant offense," Dotson said. "He has the ability to score a lot."
It was a huge win for the Tigers, allowing them to keep pace with Desert Hills. The Thunder rallied to stave off Canyon View to remain in the Region 9 lead at 8-2, but Hurricane is nipping at their heels at 7-3. The teams square off Friday at Hurricane.
"We control our destiny," Dotson said. "If we can win out, we'll take the region championship. We had a little hiccup, but these kids responded well."
The "hiccup" Dotson referred to was the upset loss the Tigers suffered at Canyon View on Friday. Thanks to an 8-0 spurt at the beginning of the fourth quarter Wednesday, another loss to a Cedar City team was not in the cards.
Vaifanua got the run rolling with a 3-pointer. Zach Sorenson (eight points) and Anderson Rich (seven points) followed with finger rolls as Hurricane aggressively attacked the zone to take a 38-30 lead.
"We were much better the second half," Dotson said. "We moved the ball and got some great looks."
Cedar (6-5) fought back and slowly chipped away at the deficit, catching a break with about a minute to go when Vaifanua heaved an inbound pass over everyone's head to the Hurricane bench. The junior was briefly removed from the contest - to bring in Jacob Pugh for defense, Dotson said - but redeemed himself shortly thereafter.
Vaifanua made a pair of free throws with 21 seconds left to ice the game.
"I knew after the turnover he was going to pull me out," Vaifanua said. "I just tried to forget that play and move on."
Said Dotson: "McCrae's young and he kind of got flustered. Instead of calling the timeout he threw the ball away. I had confidence to put him right back in, that he'd be a good ballplayer for us."
Hurricane forward Tyler Hinton led the team with 12 points, most of which came when he attacked the middle of Cedar's zone.
Erik Nakken scored a game-high 15 points for the Reds. Brandon Garrett fought off early foul trouble and a slow start to register 10 points for Cedar. Sophomore Kyler Nielson chipped in seven.
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