Canon City’s Marissa McIntosh, left. (Brandon Hopper)
CAÑON CITY — Jeff Beatty predicted a good chunk of Tuesday’s game.
The Mesa Ridge coach knew that second-ranked Canon City would shoot the ball well.
And he knew that if the Tigers tried to play man defense on his star player, Kylee Shook, that she’d have a big game.
He didn’t see the drubbing coming, though.
The Tigers were 8-for-17 from 3-point land in the first half and Shook scored often, but without a second threat the 10th-ranked Grizzlies couldn’t hang. Canon City finished off Mesa Ridge with a 52-44 score in the teams’ Colorado Springs Metro League opener in the Tiger Dome.
“You have to know you’re not going to stop (dominant players such as Shook),” Tigers coach Dan Heath said, “You want to limit them, and then you want to do all the things you always do to the rest of the team. You don’t want to have so much focus on one player that you let other players beat you. We did a good job of that tonight.”
Shook had 12 points at halftime, but the rest of the Grizzlies combined for only two – a first-quarter bucket by freshman Chloe Welch. Shook ended with 23 points, and Welch scored seven late in the game to finish with nine.
“It’s very difficult (to win when only Kylee is scoring),” said Beatty, head coach of the defending state champion Grizzlies. “We were missing inside shots, we rushed our shots a little bit. That’s that youth thing. Sometimes we get in there and let it speed us up instead of playing at our speed.”
Canon City’s Marissa McIntosh looks to pass against Mesa Ridge on Tuesday.
It’s not a surprise they felt rushed. With the way the Tigers came out firing, the Grizzlies felt they needed to keep pace. Tigers senior standout Nicole Archambeau hit three 3-pointers in the first quarter and Emily Lambrecht added two to give the Tigers a 15-6 lead after the first eight minutes.
“We hit a lot of shots,” said Lambrecht, who finished with a team-high 14 points. “It was weird (to miss) a shot in the first half it seemed like.”
Kaylan Miller hit the team’s sixth 3-pointer in the early moments of the second quarter, and it wasn’t until Kristin Katchmar’s bucket with 6:51 left on the clock that the Tigers made a two-point shot. By that time, they’d stretched the lead to 20-8. A Lizzy McCalla 3-pointer at the end of the half made it 34-14 at halftime.
Mesa Ridge inched back in the second half to make the game look close. Welch hit a 3-pointer with less than a minute left to cut the lead to seven, but even Beatty had pretty much called off the fouling at the point.
To go with Lambrecht’s 14 points, Miller had 10 and Archambeau finished with nine. Archambeau led the team with six rebounds and Lambrecht grabbed five. Miller had a team-high six assists. Archambeau ended the game with five steals.
Canon City improved to a state-best 10-0 with the win. Its last two wins have been against fifth-ranked Pueblo West (67-65 in overtime) and now 10th-ranked Mesa Ridge.
The Grizzlies fell to 4-5 and have now lost two in a row — to Canon City on Tuesday and ninth-ranked Pueblo South (50-43) on Dec. 18.
It was the teams’ Colorado Springs Metro League opener. The Grizzlies dominated the league last year to the tune of a 12-0 record with scores averaging 68-25, and the eventual state champs finished 28-0.
The Tigers’ next game will be against Mitchell (7-2) on Thursday in Colorado Springs. Mesa Ridge will host Sierra (5-2) on Thursday.