When Bryan Brooks heard the final tally of the third-quarter blitzkrieg by his Ridgewood girls basketball team, the coach was rendered speechless momentarily.
“Once one hits one, it’s really contagious with us,” Brooks said, once the smile finally disappeared from his face.
Third-ranked Ridgewood earned an appearance at Redbird Arena after dispatching ninth-rated Colfax Ridgeview 70-58 in the Class 1A Bloomington Supersectional, a rout prompted by a 19-2 run early in the third quarter.
Here’s the part that makes that spurt truly extraordinary: Ridgewood (31-2) doled out that whooping needing only 3 minutes, 9 seconds.
“If our shooters are hitting, we can put a lot of points up,” Brooks said.
That was certainly the case in a packed Shirk Center on Monday.
Ridgewood’s rally included 3-pointers from Amanda Kruger, Ella Teel and Jena Peterson and turned what was a four-point advantage for the Mustangs (28-5) into a 42-29 deficit by the 4:27 mark of the third. Once the dust settled, Ridgewood outscored Ridgeview 28-12 in the period.
“We are really good at getting up and down the floor,” said Kruger, who started the spurt with a lean-in 3-pointer. “We were just on offensively in the third quarter.”
Unlike previous postseason games against Knoxville and Annawan that went to overtime after Ridgewood blew substantial leads, the Spartans kept their foot on the gas pedal in this one.
“We didn’t want to let them back in the game,” said Kruger, who scored 20 points to lead Ridgewood.
After the Ridgewood run, the Mustangs were never the same, playing rushed offensively and looking lost defensively.
“I thought Ridgeview was tired. Their tongues were hanging out,” Brooks said.
The Spartans pushed the lead to as much as 20 points with 2:34 remaining before Ridgeview made a run in the final 90 seconds to bring some respectability to the final score. But this one was pretty much on cruise control from the middle part of third quarter, which was fine with Peterson.
“There was a respect issue going on. They kind of weren’t respecting us, thinking they already had the game,” Peterson said. “We were going to come out and put it to them and make sure they knew who we were.”
The Mustangs, who finished third in Class 1A last season, were neck-and-neck with the Spartans until that run.
Decorated Ridgeview point guard Paige Nord scored nine in the first half and routinely penetrated deep into the Ridgewood defense. Late 3s by Nord and Megan Jones allowed the Mustangs to close the half with a 24-23 advantage.
