BOUNTIFUL -- In November, the thought of Layton fans chanting, "Let's get region" seemed as likely of occurring as Pete Rose admitting he bet on baseball.
Oh, Pete wrote a book? The Lancers are in first place? Is that the rest of the Region 1 teams that are eating crow?
This is exactly what transpired Tuesday night at the conclusion of the Lancers' scintillating 53-50 victory over the Viewmont Vikings.
The Lancers are in a first place tie with Fremont, but want it all for themselves.
"We don't want to share it," said Layton coach Scott Applegate.
The Lancers almost lost a game that they had a strangle hold over at the start of the fourth quarter.
After scorching the nets with four three-pointers in the third quarter the Lancers opened up a 15-point lead.
After Kayson Gines sealed a 15-point comeback by the Vikes with a lay-up with 32-seconds remaining it looked like the Lancers had blown their region title hopes.
With the crowd in a frenzy the Lancers calmly ran their offense as they had all night, working the ball around the perimeter until Kasey Craven drove a knife through the hearts of the Vikes with a jumper with 10 seconds left to give the Lancers the lead for good at 51-50.
The Vikings failed to call a timeout and threw up an errant shot as the clock ran down. The Lancers then knocked down two free-throws to end the game.
"I wasn't that uptight. We've done that all year. We like to make things interesting," said Applegate.
The Lancers were administering some severe punishment to the Viking defense with some deft shooting en route to a 18-9 run in the third quarter.
In frustration Viewmont coach Jeff Emery put in his entire bench and found the spark he was looking for.
The Vikings got their wake-up call and stormed back behind some scrappy defense and two critical threes by Ben Bagshaw. The Vikes showed some valiance in coming back, but ultimately it was too little too late.
Bradon Godfrey set the tone for the entire game when his long-jumpers started to rain from all angles. He dropped 24-points on the Vikes to go along with seven rebounds and four assists.
Craven had 13-points, eight-rebounds, and two-blocks while Nate Grondell had 14-points, five-rebounds, and two-blocks.
The Vikings struggled to get the offense rolling until late in the game, and keyed most of it coming off of their defense with 15-points coming off of turnovers.
Sol Jensen led the way with 15-points while Gines had 12 and Bagshaw had 10-points respectively.
The Vikings dropped to 6-4 in region.
For the Lancers, they have only a few more weeks to make their dreams come true.
"We have a bunch of guys who play hard, believe in each other and believe in the system," said Applegate.
They're making everyone else believe in them too.