Pushed to the brink by Northfield throughout the final 16 minutes, the Roosevelt girls basketball team refused to break.
And now, the Rough Riders are champions — again.
Led by sophomore forward Kyla Hollier’s 26-point, 11-rebound effort, the second-seeded Rough Riders survived wave after wave from the never-say-die Nighthawks to win the Class 5A championship game, 69-63, Saturday inside the Denver Coliseum.
The win clinched Roosevelt’s second straight 5A title and capped a wild weekend that saw it beat No. 3 Mead and No. 4 Northfield by a combined 13 points to finish the season 26-2.
“It was a grind,” Roosevelt coach Enoch Miller said. “These kids had the weight of the world on them every game this season (as defending champions). Every game they stepped out there they were expected to win, and that is really hard. I know I felt it as a coach, and I know they felt it.”
The pressure hit a crescendo in a frantic second half Saturday, as Northfield made multiple runs to trim what had been a 19-point deficit late in the second quarter to a two-point game with 1:54 to go.
Northfield (24-4) had two chances to tie it up, but consecutive shots around the hoop rimmed out.
Junior forward Ryanne Bahnsen-Price scored three straight after that, capped by a fast-break layup off an outlet pass from senior Brynn Price with 50 seconds left that gave Roosevelt a 68-63 lead and finally put Northfield away.
“I’m just super proud of our grit, our courage to continue to keep fighting even when there were times that it didn’t look good,” Miller said. “Our kids had to get a couple of defensive stops, and that’s what we talked about, and we did. We got them when we needed to.”
Bahnsen-Price finished with 15 points, surpassing 1,000 for her career in the first half. That included a 9-of-14 day at the free-throw line, four coming with Roosevelt clinging to a seven-point lead midway through the third quarter after the Nighthawks received technical fouls for six players on the court and the disagreement that followed.
Roosevelt seniors Maddie Moyers (10 points, three steals) and Kinsey Trujillo (five points, 11 rebounds) made major contributions. But the big difference came on the boards, where Roosevelt held a 43-34 advantage. The Riders snatched 20 offensive rebounds, producing a 19-12 edge in second-chance points.
“We knew we had to (rebound) against this team because there’s a lot of shots going up,” Bahnsen-Price said. “… That’s really how we won, we just crashed the glass.”
“It’s just more heart,” added Hollier, who had six offensive boards on her own.
Hollier scored 19 of her game-high 26 in the first half, including back-to-back baskets in the game’s opening 30 seconds, to help Roosevelt take a 38-19 lead with 1:08 left in the second quarter.
The game turned after that, however, with Northfield’s Aliyah Herron igniting a 10-1 run to close out the first half with a wicked crossover that sent Hollier sprawling to the floor. The junior promptly banked in the wide-open three, setting off a roar from a lively Nighthawks student section that energized Northfield.
Herron finished with 14 points, while freshman guard Madison Bethel had 16 points and five steals; senior Nashara Ellerbee 14 points, 12 rebounds and three blocks; and freshman LaPorsha Allen eight points.
Yet two days after rallying from 14 down to upset top-seed Air Academy in overtime for the program’s first state title game berth, Northfield ran out of lives against the defending champs.
“I’m so proud of the girls, my coaching staff. Everybody just put in their all,” Northfield coach Sydney Price said. “It didn’t fall our way, but we still made history. We’re a young team, our seniors went out strong as they could and that’s all we ask of them.”
Northfield could just be getting started with their two leading scorers (Bethel and Allen) both freshmen. Roosevelt may not be done either. While the Riders graduate five seniors, they bring back their own leading scorers (Hollier and Bahnsen-Price) next winter.
“I can’t say enough about Northfield,” Miller said. “For those kids to be freshmen and sophomores and to do what they did, they were amazing.
“The shots that they made down the stretch, you talk about Cinderella or whatever, they’re going to be back and they are going to win one in the next couple of years. There’s no question about it.”
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