MHS girls edge Notre Dame in Senior Night thriller

The Maricopa Rams celebrated Senior Night with one of their biggest wins of the season.

Ignited by Julia Dickerson’s lead-changing three-point play with 2:54 remaining, the Rams scored 12 of the final 16 points to earn a 51-44 victory Friday over visiting Scottsdale Notre Dame.

“When it really counted, they were focused,” Maricopa coach Jennifer Miller said about the Rams, who improved to 13-11 overall and 5-7 in the Class 4A-II East Sky Region. “They got the job done. They played with their hearts and their heads tonight.”

With the win, Maricopa stands at 7-8 in games that count in the AIA power rankings for Class 4A-II. The victory over highly-rated Notre Dame (11-3 in power-point games, 9-3 in the East Sky Region) will help the Rams significantly in their quest to move up from 21st in the power rankings (where they began the day on Friday) to the top 16 (where they’ll need to be in order to qualify for the state tournament).

“We’re not sitting in the top 16, but everyone between us and like 14 is within striking distance,” Miller said. “And so tonight, the number of victory points that we get should help us jump back up in the rankings.”

Friday’s dramatic finish was the second of this month involving the two teams. Back on Jan. 4, Notre Dame edged the Rams 44-39 in Scottsdale.

“When we played these guys up there, we went to overtime,” Miller said. “We felt like we could beat them, and we had some calls not go our way. It was really deflating for the girls, and it took them a while to get over it. So they wanted this one really badly, especially with it being Senior Night. Our girls were fired up for it.”

Junior guard Paige Provost led Maricopa with 19 points in Friday’s game. Dickerson, a junior center, finished with 18 points and 11 rebounds, while forward Morgan Rainey, one of the nine 12th-graders who were honored during the Senior Night ceremony at halftime, added six points and eight rebounds.

“Morgan Rainey was solid,” Miller said. “She usually is. I don’t know what I’ll do when I don’t have a Morgan on the team anymore.”

Notre Dame grabbed an early 11-4 lead, but the Rams battled back to tie the score at 27-27 on a jump shot by Provost with 5 seconds remaining before halftime.

Provost made three field goals from three-point range and added a free throw in the third quarter, when the Rams outscored the Saints 10-5 to pull ahead 37-32.

Dickerson began the fourth quarter with a 6-footer in the lane to increase the margin to 39-32, but Notre Dame then scored eight consecutive points to take a 40-39 lead with 3:05 left.

The Rams went ahead to stay on Dickerson’s 12-foot jumper from the left baseline with 2:54 remaining. Dickerson was fouled on the shot, and she made her free throw to give the Rams a 42-40 lead.

“That was huge,” Miller said about Dickerson’s three-point play. “That was kind of a momentum-stealer.”

Less than a minute later, Provost stole the ball from the Saints and passed it to Dickerson, who completed the fast break with a drive to the basket to increase the Maricopa advantage to 44-40.

After another steal by Provost led to a fast-break layup by Jahnei Johnson with 57 seconds left, Notre Dame pulled within 46-44 on a three-pointer by Jennifer Kish with 49 seconds remaining.

Dickerson split a pair of free throws to put Maricopa ahead by three at 47-44. The Rams then made a key defensive stop, regaining possession when the ball was deflected out of bounds by Notre Dame during a battle for a rebound.

Provost hit two foul shots to make it 49-44 with 15.5 seconds left, and Dickerson clinched the victory by swishing a pair of free throws with 4.7 seconds remaining.

Photo by Tom Kessler