No. 3 Green Mountain girls hoops continues long 4A Jeffco win streak

LAKEWOOD — A lot has changed on and off basketball court since Jan. 16, 2019.

One thing that hasn’t changed for nearly three years is how Green Mountain’s girls basketball team has dominated the Class 4A Jeffco League. The Rams’ conference winning streak hit 30 games Monday night with a 86-35 home victory over Standley Lake.

“It is really the next group being motivated by the prior group,” Green Mountain coach Darren Pitzner said of a key to the conference winning streak. “So much of that is from our feeder coaches. What they have built makes me feel so lucky to be here at this time.”

Senior Shea Murphy is actually the only player for the Rams that played in Green Mountain’s last conference loss, a road defeat against Evergreen back on Jan. 16, 2019.

“It really does feel like forever ago,” Murphy said after being reminded of the last league loss. “It has been a fun four years. I feel like we have grown so much in four years. It’s been fun.”

The fun continued for the Rams — No. 3 in this week’s CHSAANow.com Class 4A girls basketball rankings — with another impressive league win. Standley Lake (3-5, 1-2 in league) actually was right with undefeated Green Mountain (8-0, 3-0) midway through the first quarter.

A driving buck by Standley Lake sophomore Taylin Serlen cut the Rams’ lead to 9-8 with 5:30 left in the first quarter.

“Taylin commands a lot of thought,” Pitzner said of the Gators’ impressive 6-foot-1 sophomore. “She has really become an aggressive and smart player. She is a handful. Our girls did a good job of adjusting.”

Serlen finished with 22 points, but most came in the first quarter and in the fourth quarter once Green Mountain had the game well in hand.

“We all had our eyes on her,” Murphy said of facing Serlen who came in averaging 21.8 points and 13 rebounds per game. “We were all told to try to stop her. I think we successfully did that.”

Green Mountain’s full-court pressure defense propelled the Rams to a 30-2 run from late in the first quarter until midway through the second quarter. Green Mountain had a commanding 51-13 lead at halftime.

“Our press was pretty ruthless,” Pitzner said. “That is what we want to do all the time. It was a fun game.”

Senior Avery Oaster had a game-high 24 points, including a 3-pointer at the buzzer to end the third quarter for the Rams. Junior Jayda Maves did the majority of her scoring in the first half. The guard who had never lost a league game poured in 21 of her 23 points in the first half.

“We don’t really keep track of our wins,” Maves said of the 30-game winning streak. “We just take each game by on each day. We know what we need to do to keep winning.”

Murphy finished with a dozen points and fellow senior Olivia Sears contributed 9 points for the Rams.

“I’m excited to get home and do the stats to see how many assists we had,” said Pitzner after having 10 players score in the win. “We moved the ball really well. I love how selfless our girls are and how we moved the ball.”

Green Mountain takes it undefeated record on the road against Evergreen (6-3, 2-1) coming up on Friday night. The Rams return home on Jan. 19 next week for a huge game against D’Evelyn (9-1, 3-0).

“D’Evelyn has a lot of people who can run. They know what they need to do to beat us,” Maves said of the No. 8 ranked Jaguars. “I think they are going to big our biggest competition in league this year.”