Girls basketball: Everyone gets in the act as 6A No. 2 Monarch blows past Horizon
LOUISVILLE — The girls basketball program from Horizon High School did its best to tame the scoring of BoCoPreps.com player of the year Natalie Guanella, who had just one point in the opening half Friday night for Class 6A No. 2 Monarch.
A more important point: That doesn’t seem to be the recipe to beat the Coyotes.
The senior guard passed up looks all night long, serving more as a creator than a scorer, gladly letting the rest of her team cook in a dominating 62-33 victory over the Hawks.
“It was just really fun,” she beamed. “I just kept looking over, seeing everyone scoring.”
Caroline Walley had 17 of a career-high 19 points in the first half to help extend Monarch’s winning streak to nine games — the second-longest in the classification behind No. 1 Valor Christian, which came into the night with 13 straight.
Amelia Rosin added 11 points and Arezo Safi 10, emphatically snapping the Hawks’ own seven-game winning streak. Guanella and Hayley Luther each had seven.
“With them face-guarding Natalie and really focusing on her, it opened things up for everyone else,” said Walley, who had 15 of the team’s 22 points in the second quarter. “I felt like all my baskets were all really set up and they all felt like team baskets. The floor just opened up really nicely and we had really good ball movement.”
In summary: Monarch scored the first seven points, hit its first five attempts after the break and led by as many as 37.
That ball movement Walley spoke about, it went around the team as if they had greased palms. The open floor it created might have well been a trapdoor under the Hawks’ feet.
“We needed a statement game in the league because the last few league games we haven’t done our best,” Rosin said. “We feel like we needed to come out and put someone away right away, and we did that.”
Rosin scored a quick four points to open things, and Walley scored nine straight in the second quarter before Safi closed the half with a buzzer-beating, and-one to give Monarch a 37-14 lead.
Its surgical attack was so effective in that second quarter, Horizon coach Dan Doehler screamed towards midcourt to call a timeout. He was visibly frustrated, and so were his players.
The Coyotes continued their torrid pace after the break, scoring 11 points in the first two minutes of the third to finish a 24-0 run.
The win put the Coyotes (15-1, 7-0 6A Front Range League) alone atop the league standings. Horizon (10-6, 6-1) and Fossil Ridge (9-5, 6-1 as of Friday night) are a game back.
Monarch is at Broomfield Tuesday.
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