They’ve battled all year. Now two Valley teams will meet in the 5A state championship.
Redemption will be served Saturday night, one way or the other.
No. 1 Mountain View rolled to its 18th straight win and No. 2 Timberline survived an upset scare in the semifinals Friday, setting up a 5A girls basketball state championship game full of second chances Saturday.
Tipoff is at 8 p.m. at the Ford Idaho Center in Nampa.
Mountain View (23-2) gets a chance to atone for a loss in last year’s state final, a loss that spoiled its shot at a perfect season.
Timberline (23-3), meanwhile, gets a chance to avenge its only losses of the season. Mountain View won all three previous meetings with the Wolves and remains the only team to beat Timberline all season.
MOUNTAIN VIEW 60, EAGLE 36
The Mavericks wouldn’t let up, no matter the score.
Junior guard Trinity Slocum dove out of bounds for a loose ball with a 27-point lead at the start of the fourth quarter. The scramble forced an Eagle turnover, and Slocum clapped her hands together like she’d just drained the game-winning shot.
The play hardly mattered on the scoreboard. But Mountain View brought that intensity all night, allowing it to blow out the Mustangs (16-12) in a rematch of last year’s state championship.
“These guys just want it bad,” Mountain View coach Connie Skogrand said. “It comes down to that drive to want to be the best.”
[Related: Updated brackets from all six tournaments; Only one local team made the lower-division finals]
The Mavericks showcased their best early and often, jumping out to a 7-0 lead in the opening 2 minutes. It sank 5-of-6 3-pointers to build a double-digit lead in the first quarter. It even stretched the lead to 30 points with 1:46 left in the third.
The state tournament does not use the running-clock mercy rule, extending the blowout and allowing both teams to empty their benches.
“The heart was still there because, for us, it’s just a different heart than everybody else’s,” Slocum said. “It’s a different feel for the game.”
After shooting 50 percent from the floor in the first round, the Mavericks finished their semifinal 22-of-46 (48 percent) from the field, including mop-up duty.
Saenz poured in 17 points on 7-for-11 shooting. Slocum added 16 points, four assists and four steals. And sophomore forward Naya Ojukwu, a reigning first-team All-Idaho pick, found her touch in her second game back from a sprained ankle, racking up 13 points and five rebounds.
Slocum said the Mavericks needed role players to step up without their dominant post at the district tournament. But now that Ojukwu is back and Mountain View’s bench has shown what it can do, she said it makes the highest-scoring offense in the 5A classification even more dangerous.
“Now our team is more dominant,” Slocum said. “You see our offense is working. We’re shooting 50 percent when we were only shooting 28 in the beginning. So it’s just all coming together.”
The win lifts Mountain View back into the state final for the second straight year and fourth time in six seasons. Saenz, Slocum and Ojukwu started on last year’s team, which fell just short of becoming the first undefeated 5A team since 2009.
A win Saturday would go a long way to erasing those painful memories. Mountain View is 3-0 vs. Timberline so far this year. But it was also 3-0 vs. Eagle entering last year’s championship.
“As you can see from last year, it’s pretty tough to beat a team that many times,” Saenz said. “But we just need to go in there like it’s a whole new game, almost like we’ve never played them before. And kind of like what we did today, never let up. We cannot let that happen tomorrow.”
Junior forward Alex Stokoe scored 10 points on 5-for-5 shooting to lead Eagle, which drops into the third-place game. It will face Rocky Mountain at noon Saturday at Ridgevue.
TIMBERLINE 62, ROCKY MOUNTAIN 56
Ava Ranson heard the chants all game long.
Rocky Mountain held the Montana State signee and two-time 5A SIC leading scorer to three points in the first half of a 5A semifinal Friday. So every time the Timberline senior stepped to the free-throw line, the Grizzlies’ student section started chanting, “Overrated.”
The chants started again as she toed the line with a two-point lead with 1:45 left in the fourth quarter.
Swish.
The chants persisted. So she egged them on, pumping up the Rocky Mountain crowd with both arms.
Swish again.
The second free throw gave Timberline a two-possession lead, a cushion it held the rest of the way to stave off Rocky Mountain’s upset bid.
“That’s the worst thing in the world to do with her,” Timberline coach Andy Jones said. “You should just root for her. But if any kid in any crowd says anything, they might as well chalk it up.”
Timberline routed Rocky Mountain by 30 points a month ago and led the entire game Friday. But the underdog Grizzlies (16-10) pushed the Wolves to the brink, cutting the lead to one point entering the fourth quarter and two points as Ranson stepped to the free-throw line to chants of “Overrated.”
Rocky Mountain’s box-and-one defense held her in check in the first half. But she heated up with seven points in the third quarter, then took over the fourth with 11 points to finish with 21. She also drained 6-of-6 free throws in the final 2 minutes to ice the game.
“I just think it’s funny when people try and talk,” Ranson said. “It’s like: ‘OK. Well, watch what we’re gonna do to your team.’ ”
Ranson wasn’t alone as Timberline made 10-of-12 free throws in the final 2 minutes to erase some uncharacteristic mistakes. Senior Emma Ellinghouse, a Santa Clara signee, added 14 points and 14 rebounds, and Sophie Glancey had eight points and nine rebounds.
The late-game mettle ensured the Wolves a spot in the state championship for the first time since 2004. It also gives them a shot to avenge their 0-3 record to Mountain View.
But the Wolves can take comfort in recent history. Mountain View was 3-0 vs. Eagle last season only to lose to the Mustangs in the state championship game. And Eagle was 3-0 vs. Centennial three years ago before falling to the Patriots in the final.
“At the end of the day, they’re just another group of girls,” Ranson said of Mountain View. “So we’ve got to look at it exactly like that. We’re just going to go out, play our best basketball and that’s going to be enough for us.”
This story was originally published February 21, 2020 at 8:02 PM.
