Last month Matt Siebert, the coach for the Palmer Ridge girls basketball team, took his squad to Highlands Ranch to watch a matchup between No. 3 Regis and No. 4 ThunderRidge, an excursion that was part field trip, part research and a lot of fantasy.
“I tell them, ‘This is what we’re working towards’ — this is the goal, this is what I want our team to look like,” Siebert said of the goals for his first-year program. “I guess I’ve got big dreams.”
What Siebert really needs to do is hasten the process of getting his team into the Continental League. When it comes to getting front and center with the Colorado state championship trophy, recent history says you had better have a tie-in with the 12-member suburban league, which has the powerhouse teams and the best rivalries in Colorado prep basketball.This decade, for example, has been a nine-for-nine sweep, with Highlands Ranch winning from 2000-02, followed by ThunderRidge from 2003-05, and another run by the Falcons, who have won the past three titles.
Another league member, Regis, was runner-up to Highlands Ranch last year, has made four consecutive Final Four appearances and has the equivalent of an all-star team this season, with seven players having received Division I scholarship offers.
Regis coach Carl Mattei is tired of losing the big one. From the beginning of this season, when his players attended a retreat in order to bond, until today, the coach’s focus has been getting his players to believe they can beat Highlands Ranch or ThunderRidge when it matters most.
“It has to come from the heart and the mind,” Mattei said. “When I look at us on paper, we’re talented. I have no doubt we’re going to win state, but will they go into Boulder and say, ‘This is ours,’ and believe it, or will they only parrot what I’m telling them?”
Each of the three powers, with a combined 63-9 record, easily advanced to this week’s Sweet 16, setting up what could be another Continental league Final Four in Class 5A, as it was a year ago when Highlands Ranch, Regis, ThunderRidge and Chaparral duked it out.
“That was a really cool thing; we all loved it,” Highlands Ranch coach Caryn Jarocki said. “We want the teams to be successful — except when we’re playing each other.”
It’s “about one day in March”
A little more than six years ago, Bill Bradley was living in suburban Atlanta when, scanning the Internet, he came upon a job opening in Colorado.
“The athletic director said he needed someone to coach the best girls basketball program in the state of Colorado,” Bradley recalled. “I looked at that and said, ‘Man, if he’s got the guts to say that, then I’ve got to have the guts to apply for it.’ ”
Since moving to the area, Bradley has won a pair of championships with ThunderRidge, but he’s also come to appreciate the fierce rivalries that have developed with Highlands Ranch, as well as with Regis and Mattei.
“Carl works hard, Caryn works hard, but we’re not the only ones,” Bradley said. “There are a lot of coaches all over the state who probably work just as hard, but by virtue of where they are, they may not have the talent we do.
“I’m fortunate enough to be where I am. These kids were born and grew up watching the great names from the past and live in an area affluent enough that they could invest in the game in fourth grade, fifth grade, sixth grade, being in the gym every day in the spring and summer. They’ve decided, ‘I want to be the next Ann Strother, I want to be the next Abby Waner, I want to be the next Liz Sherwood.’ ”
Strother, Waner and Sherwood were high school All-Americans.
On the night Siebert took his Palmer Ridge team to ThunderRidge, Regis clobbered the Grizzlies 52-38. Three nights later, ThunderRidge was trounced 67-41 at Highlands Ranch. Those defeats led Bradley to what he called “some soul-searching” with his team.
“I believe this team is still going to improve, but we’re young and we’re still learning,” he said.
When the ThunderRidge players took the court for practice the day after the Regis game, Bradley surprised them by installing a new offensive set. There were no plans to use the system immediately, but should his team find itself going against Regis or Highlands Ranch in the state tournament, Bradley said the new wrinkle could possibly give his team an edge.
“You do find yourself thinking about those other teams,” Bradley said. “People see me and they think I’m coaching too hard or I’m trying to run a score up on somebody, but to me, every day out there is about one day in March.
“That’s what we try to talk to our kids about. It’s about execution; if you don’t execute today, if it slips today, that means you’re going to let it slip in that big game, the game that one possession means all the world. So, every day, it’s about a Ranch or a Regis — because that’s the game we want to be playing in.”
Regis trying to break through
Standing in his gym before practice, Mattei bemoans the fact his team played Highlands Ranch in its second conference game, saying CHSAA shouldn’t have scheduled such an important contest so early in the season.
But the schedule-makers likely would argue they indeed know what they’re doing. When Highlands Ranch and ThunderRidge met Feb. 17, in the third-to-last game of the season, everyone knew it was more than a run-of-the-mill game — the winner of that regular-season battle has gone on to win the past nine state titles.
In some ways, it was another example of the frustration felt by Regis in its attempt to break through and win a championship that in recent seasons has fluttered tantalizingly into its grasp.
With the most veteran team of the trio, Mattei might spontaneously explode at midcourt if Regis doesn’t win this year.
“Highlands Ranch has that belief — ‘We’ve got Regis.’ It doesn’t even have to be a star; it can be a role player. But they go, ‘We’re Highlands Ranch — we’re better than Regis.’ And until you break that, and the kids see there’s a chink in the armor, that’s how it is,” Mattei said.
If Jarocki heard Mattei’s words, she surely would be tempted to break into a hearty laugh. After losing the core of her 2008 championship team, the coach admits she thought Highlands Ranch might struggle this season. Instead, a program that has fostered stars from Strother to Alyssa Fressle simply reloaded.
“I think the kids expect that when it’s their turn, they’re going to compete at that level,” Jarocki said. “But frankly, they’ve surprised me, too, with their tenacity and their willingness to do whatever it takes to be there, to be part of this legacy.
“I thought we’d be OK, but I didn’t know we’d be this OK.”
At the start of each season, Jarocki has a team meeting in which the players set their goals.
“It’s a map for the season, and the kids do it, so they have a buy-in to it,” Jarocki said. “Right at the start, they said, ‘We want to win the league and we want to win state.’
“The medium was to make it to the Final Four and the high was to win state. We decided that if we’re going to lose, it’s going to be in the semis, because if we make the finals, we’re not gonna lose.”
Anthony Cotton: 303-954-1292 or acotton@denverpost.com
Power trips
Wednesday’s Sweet 16 highlights:
Regis (20-4) vs. George Washington (18-6) at World Arena, Colorado Springs, 5 p.m.
ThunderRidge (21-3) vs. Denver East (16-7) at Budweiser Events Center, Loveland, 5 p.m.
Highlands Ranch (22-2) vs. Rocky Mtn. (18-7) at Budweiser Events Center, Loveland, 8 p.m.
