ON THE RISE
regis Jesuit High School’s Avery Vansickle shoots in the first half of the Class 5A state girls basketball Final Four game against Grandview High School on Thursday. The Raiders won 73-69, handing Grandview its only loss of the season.
Were those tears, Carl Mattei? “I haven’t cried, I guess, since 2013,” the Regis Jesuit girls basketball coach said after his Raiders stunned unbeaten Grandview on Thursday, 73-69, in the Class 5A state girls basketball Final Four. “At Christ the King (in New York), I didn’t burst into tears.
“The emotions just came out, because I’m so proud of these kids.”
He was also emotionally exhausted from the game’s final 2:13, which saw the favored Wolves (17-1) use a full-court press to facilitate a frenetic 13-5 run over the next 98 seconds, clawing from 66-56 down to 71-69 with 34 ticks on the clock.
“At the end, it’s a bumper-car ride at a zoo,” said Mattei, whose Raiders will face Valor Christian — the top-seeded Eagles beat Regis 67-45 a month ago in their only meeting this season — for the 5A title.
“It was one of those (where) everyone’s just doing everything (wrong). We’re making mistakes, they’re making mistakes. We’re like, ‘OK, these are two good teams, right?’”
A putback by Grandview forward Addison O’Grady with half a minute to go got the Wolves to within 71-69 before things got … crazy.
A Regis turnover gave Grandview the ball back under its own basket with 22.3 seconds left. But O’Grady was trapped by a Raiders triple team 10 seconds later and got called for traveling while trying to pivot into space.
Regis’ ensuing possession ended almost as soon as it started, thanks to an over-and-back call.
That gave the Wolves the ball with another chance to tie or win it, this one starting at midcourt with 10 seconds left.
The rock found its way to O’Grady near the top of the key, where 5-foot-4 Regis junior Madden McHugh reached in, despite a nearly 12-inch difference in height, and forced a jump ball, with the possession arrow giving the ball back to the hosts.
“We’d said, ‘Tie up the post, foul the guard,’” Mattei explained. “Because it was a (twopoint) game, they were going to score and win the game. I said, ‘Whoever gets it, foul the guards, tie up the bigs.’”
Regis senior guard Avery Van-Sickle (16 points) sank two free throws with 5.2 seconds left to put the hosts up four and seal the upset.
Raiders guard Savitri Jackson (14 points) was a one-person wrecking crew at the start of the second half, netting nine points in the first seven minutes of the third quarter on a 3-point play, a trey from the right wing and another 3-point play. The sophomore’s third bucket of the second half and the ensuing free throw capped a 9-2 Regis run and put the hosts up 42-30 with 5:06 remaining in the period.
The first two periods made for a compelling tug of war, with the Wolves using a front court of Stanford commit Lauren Betts and O’Grady, who’ll play collegiately at Iowa, to their advantage early before Regis switched the tempo in the second quarter to seize control.
The visitors raced out to an 11-5 lead on Betts’ layup with 5:21 to go in the opening period. The Raiders then knotted the contest at 11 apiece before Grandview closed the frame on a 10-5 run.
Libby Campbell’s layup gave the favored Wolves a 23-16 lead to open the second quarter, but the cushion proved to be short-lived. Regis cranked up its press, stalling the Grandview offense while sparking the Raiders to a 15-3 run.
Jones set the tone with 86 seconds until halftime, getting a step on the taller Betts and driving past the shot-blocker for a layup to put the hosts up 31-26.