TOSH Top 30 – #25 Borges’ two sports, two cities, one day

By Kurt Johnson

Photos by Kurt Johnson & Kevin McInnis

Editor’s Note – The TOSH Top 30 is our countdown of the top 30 stories from the 2015-16 school sports year, beginning with No. 30 and counting down, one story a day, to No. 1. The 2015-2016 high school sports year was filled with big performances, both team and individual. The act of narrowing down our initial list of top stories for our TOSH Top 30 stories of the year to just 30 was a difficult task. We asked people all over the state for input into our final list and beginning June 22, we are counting them down in reverse, from story No. 30 to story No. 1. Hopefully your favorite story of the past school year made our list.

Today, we reveal No. 25 and celebrate a day in the life of a true two-sport star athlete, Livia Borges of Layton High soccer and basketball.

Layton’s Livia Borges battles for a loose ball during the state semifinal. (Photo by Kevin McInnis)

#25 – Livia Borges, two sports, two states, one day

February 26 might have been a typical game day for most of the Layton High girls basketball team, at least as typical as it could be when your perfect season was on the line against another undefeated squad. For Livia Borges, however, it was a day on which she took being an elite two-sport athlete to an entirely new level.

The 7:30 p.m. start time for the basketball game at Salt Lake Community College was ideal for Borges as that state girls basketball semifinal was her second major contest of the day. After an outstanding performance in Thursday’s state quarterfinal win over Pleasant Grove (15 points, 4 rebounds, 5 assists, 5 steals), the Lancer junior jumped on a plane and flew to Arizona to join her club soccer team.

Borges played in a major soccer match with her La Roca teammates Friday and then hopped back on another plane for the return trip to Utah for a huge state basketball semifinal. That battle with Copper Hills pitted two undefeated Class 5A powerhouses against each other in a game that eventually went to overtime before the Lancers moved one step closer to their eventual state title, which they won Saturday.

The undefeated Layton championship team and that dramatic and somewhat controversial semifinal will come later in our TOSH Top 30 countdown. Not to give too much away, but that story  is among our Top 10.

As it was most of the season, Borges defense was critical for Layton during the championship run, and she scored five or her eight points in the latter stages of regulation and overtime of the win over Copper Hills as the Lancers claimed a hard-fought 46-44 win. It was an amazing end to a very busy day for any high school junior.

Livia Borges No. 1 sport is soccer, which she will play at the next level. (Photo by Kurt Johnson)

Borges, who will play soccer at the University of Utah once her high school career concludes, is an all-state midfielder in that sport. She scored six goals her sophomore season and nine more during her junior campaign. On the hardwood, Borges averaged 7.17 points, 5.26 rebounds, 3.26 assists and 3 steals per contest for the Lancers during the 2015-2016 season.

It was, however, her two games in two states on that one fantastic Friday that earned Livia Borges our No. 25 story in the 2015-16 TOSH Top 30.

Related content (TOSH Top 30 stories of the year):

No. 26 – Dominance of Utah County baseball

No. 27 – 8 straight for Park City golf, 3 for Mitchell Schow

No. 28 – Two titles for the runners of Davis

No. 29 – Skyline, Park City still own the pool

No. 30 – UHSAA going to six classifications, new schools coming