Logan overpowers Melrose to win 1A boys title

The blueprint for stopping top-seeded Logan was pretty straight forward.

But for No. 2 Melrose to put that into practice Saturday in the 1A boys high school state championship game in the Pit was a little bit more difficult.

The result was the Longhorns (26-3) winning 56-44 to add a hoops banner to the one they won in six-man football in the fall. It’s the school’s first basketball title since 2012.

“Logan has always been a basketball town,” Longhorns coach Kyle Griffiths said. “We’ve probably won more state track championships. We won the football championship this year. We’ve won a couple of baseball championships but Logan has always been a basketball town. It’s always been focused around basketball so I feel like bringing one back to Logan after all of these years is huge for the community.”

The teams split two meetings earlier in the season, each winning on the road, giving Buffaloes coach Drew Hatley a good idea of what needed to be done.

“Priority No. 1 was to rebound,” he said. “Priority two was to defend their bigs with a sagging type of man-to-man defense and when we’re off-ball do a good job of double- and triple-teaming their bigs. Priority three was to get out in transition. We had some chances to get out in transition and we turned it over.”

Melrose simply did not get the job done.

Logan enjoyed a 47-34 rebounding edge, including 17-10 on the offensive glass. Longhorns’ 6-foot-7 post Hayden Bruhn had 23 points and 16 rebounds, while 6-5 power forward Mason Wallin added 10 points and nine rebounds. Logan scored 38 points down low.

Cy Draper — who is heading to Florida soon to compete in the Business Professionals Association national high school competition — led the Melrose effort with 13 points and eight rebounds, while Chance Brittenum chipped in 12 points and five rebounds.

And while the Buffaloes had eight points off of turnovers, that wasn’t enough, Hatley said, especially since Logan had 12.

But it was the post play that really proved to be the difference.

“We scored a lot of points in the paint all year,” Griffiths said. “The two big guys get the majority of the points a lot of times, but without those guards getting them the ball, without those guards penetrating, creating turnovers and getting the ball inside, well, it’s a full team effort.”

Melrose still managed to hang around through the first half, trailing just 23-20 before Rylan Montoya hit a 3-pointer seconds before the buzzer.

Even more emphatically, the Longhorns ended the third quarter on Bruhn’s follow-dunk to make it 39-29 entering the final quarter.

“I don’t think it was a turning point, but the dunk, it was big as far as uplifting our team and giving us a momentum shift a little bit,” Griffiths said. “At that point, I think everybody knew we were in the driver’s seat, but that definitely helped.”

What also helped was having the championship game experience from the fall, Wallin said, as almost the entire team also played football.

“It was a definitely a momentum thing for us to try and win basketball and football. It was definitely something to keep us going,” he said. “But this one felt completely different. I mean, whenever we walked on the court, it was crazy.”

Logan downs Melrose to capture boys 1A state finals: Photos