ST. GEORGE — The beat goes on for the Snow Canyon girls basketball team, which dominated Crimson Cliffs 66-39 Tuesday night to improve to 16-1 overall and 7-0 in Region 9.

Meanwhile, Cedar needed double overtime and a free throw from Gabby Gomez to beat host Desert Hills 54-53.

And visiting Hurricane squeaked by Dixie with a 37-34 win, a pivotal victory that puts three teams at 4-4 in region play behind Snow Canyon and Cedar.

Pine View had a bye.

Following are recaps of each game.

Snow Canyon 66, Crimson Cliffs 39

Junior guard Olivia Hamlin scored 24 points to lead the host Warriors to a comfortable win.

Crimson guard Kinsey Plewe drained a 3-pointer on the first shot of the game to give the Mustangs an early lead. The score stayed close throughout the opening stanza, with Snow Canyon holding an 11-10 lead after one quarter.

Snow Canyon began to find their offensive rhythm during the middle two quarters, taking a 28-20 halftime lead and 46-27 after three quarters.

Hamlin started the fourth quarter with an assist to backcourt teammate Joey Jensen, after which Kelly Howard drained a 3-pointer from the corner. Shortly thereafter, Hamlin made a steal and a breakaway layup to effectively put the game out of reach.

In addition to her game-high 24 points, Hamlin finished with four rebounds, four assists, three steals and two blocks.

Jensen finished with 14 points for the region-leading Warriors, while Howard added eight. Both players were 2-for-5 from 3-point range.

Crimson Cliffs was led by senior Plewe’s 13 points, with junior forward Alyssa Whittaker adding seven points. The Mustangs shot 10-for-47 from the field (21%) and converted 12-of-18 free throws (67%).

Snow Canyon shot 29-for-59 from the field (49%) and committed just nine turnovers to Crimson’s 22.

The Mustangs ended up with a slight rebounding edge, grabbing 31 boards to Snow Canyon’s 29.

— written by Jeff Richards

Cedar 54, Desert Hills 53, 2OT

In a low-scoring defensive battle that needed two overtime periods to decide, Cedar won it on the free throw line as Gabby Gomez sank the winning point from the charity stripe with 1.9 seconds remaining in the second OT.

As the score proved, after the second half the game was a back-and-forth affair that emphasized the importance of every possession for both teams.

With the game knotted at 53, Cedar had the ball on an inbounds play with 4 seconds left. Before the ball could be inbounded, the Thunder’s Mylee Villanueva was whistled for a foul that sent Gomez to the line with the chance to win it.

Gomez confidently canned the first free throw before missing the second, but Desert Hills didn’t have enough time to launch a last-second heave and the Reds held on to win.

“I am very tired. I started cramping a lot,” Cedar’s Annalyse Shimada told St. George News after the win. Shimada tied Gomez for the team-high with 14 points, 10 of them coming from the free throw line.

“When we were neck-in-neck, shots were going back and forth,” she added. “I was thinking, we got to get another shot.”

Kiara Hansen scored 10 points for the winners, four of them on back-to-back buckets late in the second OT that put Cedar over the top. Mya Bishoff also netted 10 for the Reds and Jaylin York completed the Reds’ effort with six points.

“I’m so proud of my teammates. Kiara got a really big jump ball there late and Gabby hitting that free throw,” Shimada said. “All we needed was one. That was super big.”

It was a tough loss to take for the Thunder, who saw Villanueva go off for a game-high 27 points. Jacie Riding nailed two critical 3-pointers and scored 10 points in the setback for Desert Hills.

The Thunder shot 19-of-35  free throws compared with Cedar’s performance from the line, which was 17-of-22.

Hurricane 37, Dixie 34

The Tigers won a low-scoring contest in the Hangar and moved into third place in the region standings after the win.

The home team Flyers started things off by taking a 10-5 lead after the first quarter.

But Dixie managed just four points in the next session and Hurricane led 16-14 going into halftime.

The Tigers put together a decisive third quarter, outscoring Dixie 15-10, then held on and had just enough to left to survive a late Dixie charge.

Hurricane’s Nizhoni Dominguez led the way for the Tigers, scoring 13 points, grabbing nine rebounds and snaring three steals.

No other Tiger reached double digits, but Addison Crandall had a big night for the winners, scoring nine points to go along with three rebound and four blocks.

Whitney Esplin scored six points for the winners off of two 3-pointers and added four rebounds to her stat line.

Dixie’s Kealah Faumuina did her best to keep the Flyers in the game, leading all scorers with 14 points. Hali Smith contributed a 3-pointer and seven points to Dixie’s cause.

Region 9 girls basketball standings:

1. Snow Canyon (16-1, 7-0)
2. Cedar (14-4, 6-2)
3. Hurricane (11-8, 4-4)
4. Dixie (9-10, 4-4)
5. Desert Hills (7-9, 4-4)
6. Pine View (4-14, 2-5)
7. Crimson Cliffs (4-14, 0-8)

Schedule for Thursday, Feb. 1:

• Snow Canyon at Pine View, 7 p.m.
• Hurricane at Desert Hills, 7 p.m.
• Crimson Cliffs at Cedar, 7 p.m.

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