After an unbeaten run to start the season, the Bingham girls basketball team comes back to Earth
Feb 06, 2023 01:07PM ● By Brian Shaw
Brianna Badonie was averaging 17 points per game through Bingham’s first five games. (Travis Barton/City Journals)
The Bingham girls basketball team started out the season with a 5-0 record. They were not to be denied, using a combination of clutch perimeter shooting and gritty defense.
But that lady luck ran out in Las Vegas, as Bingham had its unbeaten mark snapped, losing three straight before getting back on the winning side in a 66-48 rout of a California school to wrap up the Tarkanian Classic.
Once the Miners got back home though, the struggles they had in Vegas came back with them as well.
Bingham [6-7] hasn’t won since that 66-48 rout back in Vegas on Dec. 22, 2022, losing four in a row since then.
There appear to be two reasons why the Miners could have been struggling. They lost junior Levani Key-Powell to an injury in the win at Skyline on Dec. 13. Key-Powell, who is Bingham’s third leading scorer [13.2 points/game], did not play in Las Vegas.
The second reason could be that the Miners closed out their preseason trailing in the first quarter in each of the three games they played.
On Dec. 30, Bingham trailed 15-11 in the first quarter en route to a 63-55 loss at Pleasant Grove. Junior Brianna Badonie had 16 points courtesy of four three-point shots she made—her season average. Junior Uma Tukuafu added 13 the hard way, but she got hers—as did junior Mata Peaua who scored 10.
At Skyridge Jan. 3, the Miners fell behind early 21-7 to the No. 4 ranked team in Utah. That deficit was too much for Bingham to overcome, but they battled back to make it competitive in a 69-50 loss.
In the Miners’ final game of the preseason Jan. 5, they were trailing 15-11 after one quarter, but chipped away at the deficit in a 63-59 home defeat to Corner Canyon. The trio of Peaua, Tukuafu and Badonie were held under their scoring averages, but seniors Sarah Broederlow and Hallie Bayles chipped in eight points apiece, and Key-Powell five, as she works her way back from her injury.
It was Key-Powell’s first game action in almost a month, and for the Miners who will now head into Region 3, play her return couldn’t have come at a better time.
