Mountain View girls basketball beats Rigby to advance to 3rd straight Idaho state title game

NAMPA - The dominance of the Mountain View High School girls basketball team seems to know no bounds.

The program, which already has three state titles to its name, made history Friday night. The Mavericks advanced to a third consecutive state championship game for the first time ever with a 73-64 win over No. 3 Rigby in the Idaho 5A State Tournament semifinals at the Ford Idaho Center.

Mountain View (19-2) will play in its fifth state championship game when it faces Thunder Ridge at 7 p.m. Saturday right back at the Ford Idaho Center.

“I love creating a name for Mountain View because all our older sisters did,” Mountain View junior post Naya Ojukwu said. “I always looked up to them, went to their games and now I hope all the younger kids are too and wanting to do it again at Mountain View.”

The Mavericks made it look pretty easy too.

They never trailed and led by double digits for basically the entire game. After senior guard D’Nia William hit a stepback 3 15 seconds into the game, Mountain View was off to the races with a 16-1 start and never looked back. It didn’t allow the Trojans (20-4) to score a field goal until there were under 40 seconds remaining in the opening quarter.

“It was really good because when we were scouting them, we were like, ‘Shoot, we’re going to have to play amazing. We have to do all this,’” Williams said. “And we did everything that we talked about this morning.”

After leaning on Ojukwu, who had 34 points in their first-round matchup against Timberline Thursday, the Mavericks had a much more balanced effort Friday. Ojukwu still got hers with a double-double of 21 points and 11 rebounds despite being in foul trouble for most of the game. But four other players scored in double figures as well.

Williams was next with 15 points. Trinity Slocum and Sierra Grizzle both totaled 12 points apiece. Slocum also had seven assists, while Grizzle recorded six boards. And Millie Brunner rounded it out with a double-double of her own of 10 points and 10 rebounds for Mountain View, which at one point led by as many as 28 points at 69-41 in the fourth quarter.

“Oh, I’m excited. That doesn’t happen very often,” said Mountain View coach Connie Skogrand about having five players score in double figures. “If you have five people get double digits, you’re gonna win a ballgame.”

The Mavericks will now try to become the seventh team in 5A classification history and the first since they did so in 2015 and 16 to repeat.

“It feels just like the first,” Williams said. “We’re playing different teams. We’re a whole completely different team, so it’s going to be a lot different, but I’m excited.”

Rigby’s Tylie Jones posted a double-double of a game-high 24 points and 10 rebounds. Brooke Donnelly got into double figures as well with 10 points for the Trojans, who did finish the game on a 15-0 run and will play Coeur d’Alene at Noon at Ridgevue High School in Nampa in the third-place game.

Photo gallery from Loren Orr: