For the second consecutive Class 5A girls basketball playoff bout, one of the state’s best teams gave Regis Jesuit all it could handle during the first half.
But also for the second straight tournament game, the No. 6 Raiders — who have not lost to a Colorado opponent all season — used a third-quarter burst to pull away from No. 3 Horizon 57-43 in Great 8 action on Friday at the Denver Coliseum.
The Hawks jumped out to a 14-7 lead in the first quarter behind the energy of senior guard Izzy Allen. But the poised Raiders struck right back in the second frame, matching tempo to cut the Hawks’ lead to 26-25 heading into the locker room.
“Every game, we all write ‘leave no doubt’ beneath our left wrist,” Regis Jesuit sophomore guard Jada Moore said. “So after the first quarter, we didn’t have any doubt in the huddle — we just knew we needed to get our game going.”
Regis Jesuit did just that in the third, as the Raiders owned the quarter 18-5 while executing a number of arena-rocking plays.
First it was freshman guard Gracie Weigand’s hustle on a loose rebound that resulted in a layup to put the Raiders up by seven with just under three minutes in the quarter.
Moore had a big block on the succeeding Horizon possession, and then Regis Jesuit marched down the floor and Moore tossed an alley-oop lay-up to junior forward Fran Belibi. A couple minutes later, Moore’s finger roll with two seconds to play in the quarter opened up the biggest lead of the night to that point, a 43-31 Regis Jesuit advantage.
“At half, I told my teammates we needed to pick up our intensity on defense, because that’s something we’ve taken a lot of pride in throughout the season — that we win games with our defense,” Moore said.
The Raiders continued to step on the gas in the fourth quarter, taking advantage of sharpshooting by freshman point guard Avery VanSickle to extend the lead.
Horizon was paced by 18 points from junior point guard Alyssa Jimenez plus 14 from Allen. VanSickle led the Raiders, who had three players score in double figures, with a dozen points.
Regis Jesuit (23-3, Continental League champions) takes on No. 2 Lakewood (23-3, Jeffco League champions) in the Final Four next Thursday at the Coliseum, while the Front Range League champion Hawks finish 23-3.
“We’re not done,” Moore said. “We have so much of this journey left to go, and we have to come out next week knowing that it’s anybody’s game from the very beginning.”
