By Parker Lee

| Special to The Tribune

Wins haven’t been as plentiful for the Taylorsville boys basketball team as it had hoped, but the Warriors have a chance to make the playoffs as Region 2’s No. 4 seed.

If they are able to move up into that final playoff spot, it likely will be because the sophomores got them there.

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At a glance

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Big player » Dayon Goodman, Kearns boys’ basketball. Goodman is averaging 16.8 points and 7.7 rebounds per game. He leads Region 2 in both categories.

Big number » 86. Entering the week, Cyprus’ Lori Parkinson needed 86 rebounds to become the third player in state history to reach 1000 career rebounds. If Parkinson hits her average in every remaining game, she would reach the 1000 mark sometime during Cyprus’ third playoff game.

Big game » West Jordan at Alta, boys’ basketball, Friday, Feb. 10, 7 p.m. The winner will likely win the Region 3 title.

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Sophomore guard Jevin Warren said the main goal for the team is still to win games, despite the Warriors’ lack of success thus far.

"We have gotten a lot better since the beginning of the season," Warren said. "But we don’t just want to improve, we want to win."

The desire is there, even if the wins haven’t been. The effort has been there as well, especially from the underclassmen.

Warren is averaging just under 10 points per game, which is second on the team. Fellow sophomore guard Sidney Freeman leads the team in scoring with 10.6 points per game, and the two youngsters have driven the Warrior offense all season.

"It has been really good for us to gain varsity experience," Warren said. "It will help us a lot for the rest of the season and in the future."

Coach Jim Boyce said to win more games and to sneak into the playoffs, Taylorsville is setting goals that don’t necessarily have to do with wins and losses. By accomplishing more of those smaller goals, the bigger goals will begin to take care of themselves.

"We are trying to break down the game," Boyce said. "We look for successes in practice and in games. My assistant, Guy Mackee, has done a great job with our defense and he has set goals with them. So it’s about compartmentalizing everything and that helps us to see where we’re at."

Taylorsville was 1-5 in region coming into the week, just one game behind Kearns for fourth place. The Warriors will need to find a third scorer to finish the season on a high note, and that scorer might come in the form of another 10th-grader. Sophomore forward Kia Delacerna averaged just 3.9 points in Taylorsville’s first nine games, but he has scored at least 10 points in three games since then.

Boyce acknowledged that the Warriors are a young team, but he said that does not give them a free pass. They expect to win games.

"They are playing guys who are two years older than them, and that is a big deal in high school, physically," Boyce said. "That’s no excuse, though. They are good enough to be varsity players and they are good enough to win."