5A girls basketball: Roosevelt defeats Windsor for first championship in program history

DENVER — Roosevelt’s girls basketball team is built for speed.

Physically and mentally.

And as the Rough Riders have proven all season long, in the blink of an eye, they can completely change the complexion of a game in their favor, often times overwhelmingly.

Saturday in the Denver Coliseum, second-seeded Roosevelt may not have completely overwhelmed its fourth-seeded rival, Windsor.

The Rough Riders didn’t need to.

At this point in the season, margin of victory doesn’t matter. Victory is all that matters.

Roosevelt took control of a tightly contested Class 5A girls basketball state title game, sprinting past the Wizards 54-44 in front of a raucous crowd.

The Rough Riders (26-2) won the first girls basketball state title in school history.

“It’s just amazing,” Roosevelt’s multi-talented sophomore shooting guard Ryanne Bahnsen-Price said. “We’ve been telling people all along we were going to do this. And to actually get here and do it, it’s an amazing feeling. I’m so excited.”

While the Rough Riders took full advantage of just their third girls basketball title game appearance in program history — their first since 2003 — Windsor (20-8) was playing in its third title game in the past three seasons.

The Wizards’ title-game experience appeared to be paying dividends as Windsor led by a modest margin at halftime — 20-15 — but was seemingly in control of the defensive-minded affair.

That changed in an instant, as Roosevelt raced out to 32-23 lead in the first five minutes of the second half, thanks to an explosive, champion-like 17-3 run.

“They’re kids, right?” Windsor coach Karin Nicholls said. “They’re young kids that work their butts off for us. I’m grateful for the group I have. But when things matter the most, you’ve got to learn how to fight. I didn’t think we fought the way that we should have.”

While the Wizards struggled to make buckets all game long against the Rough Riders’ smothering pressure defense — shooting 8 of 28 (28.6%) in each half — Roosevelt shook off its slow start to absolutely scorch the nets in the second half.

The Rough Riders shot 25% (4 of 16) in the first two quarters before shooting 57.9% (11 of 19) in the final two quarters.

“They have a lot of toughness and grit to them,” Roosevelt coach Enoch Miller said of his players. “The difference (in the second half): we were aggressive. We needed to get the pace up. (The Wizards) tried to stall in the second quarter when they were up four. They didn’t want to run with us, it was obvious.”

Bahnsen-Price led the Rough Riders with 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting. Freshman power forward Kyla Hollier chipped in 10 points on 4-of-7 shooting to go with a game-high nine rebounds. Five Roosevelt players each scored eight or more points.

Three Windsor players scored eight or more, led by senior guard Samantha Darnell’s 13 points.