PRESCOTT — Uriah Tenette scored 26 points, Cooper Magnett hit three 3-pointers and No. 6-seeded Prescott survived a slow start and will advance to the 4A state quarterfinals with a 71-50 win over Arizona College Prep on Wednesday night.

Coming off a 74-61 loss in the first round of the Open Basketball State Championships to Brophy Prep a week ago, Prescott (23-4, 11-0 4A Grand Canyon) looked a little rusty to start Wednesday night’s contest.

Trailing 25-15 with 3:39 to play in the second quarter, coach Travis Stedman was forced to call a timeout to re-focus his team.

“Our game plan was to speed them up, pressure them a little bit. But the first quarter and a half, we chose not to do any of that,” Stedman said.

Prescott used the reset to piece things together quickly, going on an 11-1 run capped by two Tenette free throws to close out the first half and tie it at 26-26.

The standout junior scored 14 of his 26 in the first half, and was 9 of 10 from the free-throw line.

In the second half, it was all Badgers, using a 11-2 run to start the third quarter and a 22-3 run overall to go up 37-28 at the 5:10 mark and never looked back.

“Once we started to pick up the pressure, we turned them over a little bit … that was our offense to get them going,” Stedman, adding that Prescott is always looking to give other team’s fits with their defense.

“It doesn’t matter who we play, our pressure bothers other teams,” Stedman said. “It’s one of the things we rely on a lot, and tonight it just took us forever to get in it.”

Magnett, who had 15 points but hit several big shots when the Badgers seemed to need them most, said Stedman didn’t mince words during the timeout.

“He said we were trying to do it as individuals. We had to come together, play as a team, and just trust one another,” Magnett said. “After that, we hit some shots and ran away with it.”

Zane Gaul scored 20 points, 16 of which came in a big second half for the 6-foot-10 junior.

Zach Cutler led Arizona College Prep (20-9, 5-5 4A East Sky) with 19 points on six 3-pointers, while Fauster Johnson added 15.

The No. 11 Knights hit nine 3-pointers on the night, but were just 5 of 12 from the free-throw line in the loss.

UP NEXT

Prescott travels south to No. 3-seeded Deer Valley (24-4, 9-1 4A West Valley) after the Skyhawks had little trouble with No. 14 Cortez in a 69-42 first-round win Wednesday night.

Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 23.

Brian M. Bergner Jr. has covered professional, collegiate and high school sports for more than 20 years. Follow him on Twitter @AzPreps365Brian. Have a story idea? Email Brian at bbergner@azpreps365.com.