FORT COLLINS — Estes Park had the St. Mary’s Pirates right where it wanted them.
Trailing by 15 after one quarter, the Bobcats regained their focus thanks to a technical foul on their coach, Dave Kiser, and eventually sunk the Pirates’ championship hopes 52-42 on Friday night at Moby Arena in the Class 3A girls semifinals.
The Bobcats (20-6) will be in search of their first state title in their second try. They lost to Colorado Springs Christian in the 2002 title game.
“It was a really ugly game,” Kiser said. “We thought it would be a really cool, up- and-down fast-paced kind of game. Wasn’t quite that way.”
St. Mary’s (22-4), which lost a heartbreaker to Estes Park in the semifinals of the Holy Family Tournament in December, did anything and everything it wanted to in the first quarter, but saw the lead quickly disappear in the second.
The Bobcats rallied behind sophomore Kim Hansen, who scored 12 of her game-high 30 in the second quarter.
“You try and build them back up and pump them up. The score was 0-0 at that point,” St. Mary’s coach Mike Burkett said. “We’d lost what we worked for, but we knew we had 16 minutes of basketball left to go — play hard. If we do that, good things can happen for us.”
The free-throw woes that nearly cost Estes Park in the first round against Buena Vista reared their head again, but eventually Hansen bailed her team out, going 8-for-10 from the line down the stretch.
Jenny Nagl led the Pirates off the bench with 14 points. Junior standout Christina Whitelaw, who fouled out early in the fourth quarter, finished with nine points.
Holy Family 65, Eaton 42 •
Holy Family coach Ron Rossi’s excitement is contagious.
After advancing to today’s championship game against Estes Park, Rossi was seen running down the hall screaming, “We’re in the championship game, baby!”
The defending champion Tigers (25-1) will attempt to become the first Class 3A girls team to repeat as title-holder tonight at 7.
The game against Estes Park will be a rematch of the championship game in the Holy Family Tournament. The Tigers won 54-52, avoiding overtime when a layup attempt at the buzzer by the Bobcats’ Alicia Stark rimmed out.
“You play somebody once, you learn something about the opponent,” Rossi said. “They really didn’t see the real Holy Family team that day.”
The real Holy Family team Friday broke a 12-12 stalemate after one quarter and got balanced scoring from Dori Gills (17), Taylor Helbig (12), Alex Wilson (10) and Sarah Talamantes (10).
Eaton (23-3) was led by Lauren Woods’ 21 points.
Jon E. Yunt, The Denver Post
