MHS girls win two, boys one, in Hoops Holiday Classic first day

The Maricopa High School girls’ basketball team won both of its games, while the boys took one of three on the first day of the eighth annual Maricopa Hoops Holiday Classic Thursday.

The two wins set up the girls to possibly capture their second straight tournament title. They play Glendale at 8 a.m. and Pueblo in the final game of the girls’ tournament at 5 p.m. today.

The boys will first meet Ajo at 9:30 a.m., then Antelope at 2 p.m. and Seton Catholic at 8 p.m.

In the tournament’s opening game, an 8 a.m. start Thursday, the Maricopa girls started sluggishly and remained somewhat ragged throughout the contest, but scored a 53-36 victory over Tohono O’Odham.

After Paige Ellis connected on a short jump shot, the Eagles ran off six unanswered points. The rest of the half, however, belonged to the Rams.

Jahnei Johnson hit a jumper, followed quickly by a layup off a steal by Maria Montes to even things up. Following a Tohono O’Odham basket, Derona Mitchell hit a jump shot that ignited a 25-5 run that lasted the rest of the first half, giving Maricopa a 31-13 lead at the break.

“We didn’t wake up until the second quarter,” head coach Jenn Miller said. “That’s what we are always afraid of in an eight o’clock game.”

After the Rams gained their biggest lead of the contest, 40-15 with 5:30 to go in the third quarter, Miller began substituting freely. The Eagles then went on a 13-0 run of their own to trim the margin to 40-28 two minutes into the fourth period.

Ellis, who re-entered along with several other starters, then scored Maricopa’s next six points to help put the game out of reach.

Mitchell paced MHS with 17 points, including 13 in the first half, while Ellis scored 15 and Johnson 12.

Against a strong Tucson Cholla team, which entered the game with a 10-4 record, the Rams found themselves down, 17-15, at halftime, but put together a strong third quarter, ending the period with a 37-23 edge. They eventually won, 46-37.

“If they could only play first and second quarters like they do the third, I would not be getting white hair right now,” Miller said.

The Rams scored the first 11 points of the third period, with Johnson tallying five and Ellis four. That built the lead to 26-17, and Cholla never got closer than seven the rest of the way.

Ellis paced Maricopa with 14 points, while Johnson added 11 and Mitchell eight.

The two wins lifted Maricopa’s record to 5-5.***ADVERTISEMENT***

A slow start doomed the Maricopa boys in their 57-44 loss to Phoenix North Pointe Prep in their first game of the day.

Leading 5-4 in the opening minutes, North Pointe then held the Rams scoreless for more than seven minutes, building an 18-4 lead.

Although he scored only five points during the run, the Falcons’ seven-foot center Luke Stivrins played a big role defensively.

“The big kid intimidated us,” Andy Branchik, Maricopa head coach noted. “We got scared of him and started taking circus shots. We weren’t really attacking with authority and we weren’t hitting from the outside either.”

The Rams’ drought continued into the second quarter with a Daniel Cross jumper the only points they scored until the 1:43 mark. They trailed 29-12 at halftime.

The halftime deficit was simply too much for Maricopa to overcome, even though it out-scored NPP 32-28 in the second 16 minutes.

Also plaguing MHS was foul trouble. The Rams’ leading scorer, Marcus Lowe, picked up his third foul with 2:20 left in the opening quarter and the team’s tallest player, 6-4 Tim Boyer, was called for three fouls within barely more than a minute in the second period.

Lowe returned to form in the second half, putting up nine of his 11 total points. Cross and Nick Samuels each scored eight for MHS.

“There were two different basketball teams in that game from the first half to the second half,” noted assistant coach Charles Litt of the Rams. “We started attacking aggressively and not being intimidated.”

The Rams then bounced back with a decisive, 75-45, victory over San Luis. MHS increased its lead in each quarter from 18-13 after the first period to 46-26 by halftime and 64-36 at the end of the third quarter.

Nick Webber paced MHS with 18 points. He was followed by Marcus Lowe with 17, Nick Samuels who had 12 and Reece Ivie who scored nine.

But against Tempe in the night’s final game, the story was the same as the contest with North Pointe Prep.

The Rams created a big hole for themselves early, and although they out-scored the Buffaloes in the second half, it was too little, too late.

Tempe took a 55-42 victory to improve its record to 9-4.

With the score tied, 5-5, in the opening moments, Tempe ran off 17 unanswered points and eventually controlled a 31-15 halftime lead. After Samuels hit a jumper to tie the score 5-5 with 4:58 to play in the opening eight minutes, MHS did not score again until Samuels made the second of two free throws at the 4:32 mark of the second quarter.

“We didn’t make a miracle adjustment at halftime,” Branchik said. “We just said pound the post, attack them, play with some heart.” The Rams out-scored Tempe, 27-24, in the second half, but were too far behind to catch up.

Steven Kogutkieweicz paced MHS with 11 points, while Lowe and DeVaughn Elledge had nine apiece.

The Rams will take a 5-7 record into the event’s second day at Maricopa High School.