SUNRISE BOYS: Pioneers top Vikings in triple overtime for third consecutive title

Canyon Springs boys basketball coach Freddie Banks never runs into the locker room at halftime.

But when the buzzer sounded to end the second quarter Friday, Banks sprinted off the floor to get to his players as soon as possible.

“I ran in there because I was mad,” Banks said. “I just had to get into them and let them know, ‘Look you guys are not playing basketball, and if you don’t hurry up and play ball, you’re going to end up getting beat by 20.’

“So, they listened to me again tonight.”

Jordan Davis finished with 33 points and pulled off a Reggie Miller moment at the end of the first half, and Canyon Springs outlasted Valley 65-63 in triple overtime in the championship game of the Division I Sunrise Region tournament at Liberty.

D’Quan Crockett had 11 points, and Channel Banks added 10 points for the Pioneers (19-10), who claimed their third straight region title and advance to the Division I state tournament starting on Thursday at Orleans Arena.

Valley (26-4) faces Sunset Region runner-up Palo Verde (19-9) in the state play-in game at 7 p.m. Monday at Chaparral.

“It means the world to us,” said Davis, who added nine rebounds, five assists and four steals. “We struggled in the first half. We were playing individually, but we came back in the second half and got the ‘W.’”

Davis scored Canyon Springs’ first eight points in the third overtime, including two free throws with 44 seconds left to give the Pioneers a 64-63 lead. Valley’s Nick Brannon drove into the lane, but his leaner with seven seconds to play didn’t fall, and 5-foot-9-inch Antonio Longmyers snagged the rebound.

Longmyers was fouled and made one of two free throws with five seconds remaining, and Cameron Burton’s desperation heave from midcourt for Valley was well off.

“Our fight is the seniors on this team did not want to give up,” Davis said. “They don’t want to end their senior year, and that’s what we did.”

Shea Garland led Valley with 18 points, and Burton finished with 17 points. Taveon Jackson had 14 points and nine rebounds, and Brannon scored 10 as the Vikings’ starters played nearly the entire game until Brannon and Darrion Daniels fouled out in the third overtime.

Canyon Springs, which trailed by as many as 16 points in the first half, led 52-42 midway through the fourth quarter before Burton’s three-point play with 44 seconds left capped a 12-2 run and tied the game at 54.

The Pioneers nearly won the game at the end of regulation after a wild sequence, but Kajuan Casey’s short-range shot rolled out. Valley held the ball for almost all of the first overtime but could only muster Daniels’ 10-foot jumper that missed with 15 seconds left.

In the second overtime, Davis’ short jumper gave Canyon Springs a 56-54 lead before Jackson’s two free throws tied the game with 47 seconds remaining. Canyon Springs held the ball for the final shot, but after a timeout with nine seconds, Davis couldn’t get a shot off in time.

Valley led 31-15 late in the second quarter, but similar to Miller’s eight points in 11 seconds against the Knicks in 1995, Davis scored six points in the final four seconds of the half to cut the Vikings’ lead to 31-23 at halftime.

“I felt like that did give us a spark,” Davis said. “It woke us up.”

Canyon Springs then opened the third quarter on a 19-6 run as Channel Banks’ 3-pointer put the Pioneers on top 42-37 with 1:25 left in the third.