The top two teams in the state faced off as Mountain View girls visited Timberline
The No. 2-ranked Mountain View girls basketball team took down No. 1 Timberline 48-46 on Saturday night — snapping Timberline’s 11-game win streak and assuming the inside track to finish in first place in the 5A Southern Idaho Conference with only four games left in the regular season.
Earlier in the season, Mountain View (14-2, 12-2 5A SIC) defeated Timberline (14-2, 12-2) 70-52, but then dropped its next game against Boise. Since then, Timberline has sat atop the conference standings.
This matchup was a far cry from November’s blowout. There were 12 lead changes and eight ties, most of which came near the end of the game. With 1:21 left in the fourth quarter, the game was tied at 43, but a free throw from Mountain View’s Laila Saenz gave her team the lead. After trading a couple of free-throw attempts on both sides, Timberline had the ball with 2 seconds left, only down two.
However, Mountain View’s defense, which kept Timberline to a 28.3% shooting clip all night, came up big again. The in-bounds pass was tipped by Trinity Slocum and Timberline’s Ava Ranson had to take a quick 3-pointer that missed wide.
Slocum, who finished the night with 21 points and 11 rebounds, had to step up late in the game after Mountain View’s leading scorer on the season, Naya Ojukwu, fouled out with 5 minutes left. Ojukwu had only made one shot to that point and Mountain View as a team ended up shooting 20% from the field.
Mountain View coach Connie Skogrand knew how important it was for her team to pull out this close win.
“It’s huge,” Skogrand said. “The heart (the players) showed, that’s huge. They know that they can win without one of the star players. Their confidence is soaring now. They know they can do this.”
“Everybody has off days,” Saenz said. “Unfortunately it was today where we had one of our off days. That’s where our defense comes in. Our defense always saves us.”
Mountain View held Timberline to only three points in the second quarter after switching to a full-court pressure defense. In the game, Mountain View forced 17 turnovers, most of which happened before Timberline could even get the ball past the half-court line. Timberline’s star player and the league’s top scorer, Ava Ranson (18.8 ppg), was held to 14 points.
“That was one of the best defensive performances we’ve put on,” Skogrand said. “Ava’s going to get her 14, but we kept her to her average, that’s huge.”
Now, Mountain View owns the tiebreaker against Timberline for district tournament seeding. Mountain View extended its winning streak over Timberline to 16 games, dating back to Jan. 3, 2012.
“We wanted that No. 1 seed,” Saenz said. “We are focused on every game, but wanting that first seed made it more intense. We are both really great teams, but we know we are capable of that No. 1 seed, and our hustle and intensity on the defensive end showed it.”
Timberline will travel to Rocky Mountain on Tuesday for its next game, while Mountain View will host Borah that night.