Grandview got what it came for Thursday, on both fronts: A small piece of revenge. And one giant step closer to a third straight Class 5A girls basketball title.
The sixth-seeded Wolves knocked off rival and No. 2 seed Regis Jesuit, 48-38, in the first of two 5A Final Four matchups at the Denver Coliseum. Grandview closed the contest, a rematch of the 2018 5A title game, on a furious 17-2 run thanks to 13 points from junior guard Landri Hudson and 10 from senior guard Allyah Marrett. And a combined nine points and 10 rebounds from two young and towering bigs — 6-foot-7 freshman Lauren Betts and 6-4 sophomore Addison O’Grady.
“We just really wanted to prove to everybody that we can go out there and we can win,” said Betts, who netted 7 second-half points and finished the evening with a team-high 6 rebounds and 3 blocks. “And whatever happened in the past doesn’t matter now.”
The Wolves (23-4) will face Cherry Creek on Saturday night at 7 at the Coliseum. Grandview has now won two of its last three against the neighboring Raiders (23-4), having knocked Regis off in last year’s 5A championship, 67-61, to notch a second straight state crown. In the last meeting between the two local powers, Dec. 12 at Regis, the Raiders stomped Grandview, 79-55.
“After the season that we had,” Betts said, “this game was a big deal for us.”
The Wolves dominated the opening eight and final eight minutes of the game, outscoring Regis, 34-11, combined, over in the first and fourth quarters. The script flipped in the middle two periods, as Regis point guard Avery Vansickle’s trey and a layup by 6-1 forward Fran Belibi to open the second half gave the Raiders a 27-26 cushion, their first lead since the game’s opening minutes. Jada Moore’s breakaway layup off a steal capped an 18-2 Regis run that saw the Raiders stake out a 30-26 edge late in the third period.
But Belibi was charged with her fourth foul a minute into the fourth quarter with the Raiders up, 36-31, forcing coach Carl Mattei’s comparatively small lineup to go even smaller at the start of the final stanza. Grandview responded by going right to work down low: two buckets from Betts keyed a 6-0 Wolves run and a 37-36 Grandview lead with 4:07 remaining in the contest, and the Raiders never quite found their sea legs again after that.
“I think once that foul hit, then we were like, ‘Aw, geez,’ ” Mattei said. “They got three easy buckets, two of them from (Betts) inside. So I had to put Fran back in and then the momentum had already shifted.”
Regis looked out of sync early offensively — missing open layups, unforced passes skipping out of bounds — and Grandview took advantage with breakouts the other way. Staring at a 24-12 deficit, the Raiders’ funk didn’t last — treys from Vansickle (13 points) and Moore (11 points) keyed a 10-2 run over the final five minutes of the second frame.
Despite 10 team turnovers in the first half and an intermission stat line from Belibi of only 2 points (on 1-of-3 shooting), 2 rebounds, 3 personal fouls and 4 turnovers, the higher-seeded Raiders trailed by just four at the break, 26-22.
“She’s devastated right now,” Mattei said of Belibi, a Stanford commitment playing in her final prep contest. “Dan Marino, Charles Barkley, there are guys that are phenomenal players that never won a championship. Fran is a girl that’s grown up so much on the court and became this phenomenal player and is still learning … the learning curve is tough sometimes.”
