High school girls basketball: Copper Hills overcomes slow start with dominant 2nd quarter to defeat Skyridge in opener

Led by a dominant 31-point effort from Skylie Barker, Copper Hills cruised to an impressive season opening victory over Skyridge 59-38.

In a battle of what many consider to be two of the top teams in the state, It was Skyridge who got off to the fast start, racing out to an early 10-4 lead. The Falcons kept the momentum throughout the duration of the opening quarter and ended up with a slim 16-12 lead after one.

“We made some critical mistakes in the first quarter that allowed them to take the lead. I thought that once we settled down and were able to break their press, things slowed down and I thought we played a lot better,” said Copper Hills head coach Jake Timpson.

While they may have started out sluggish, which is not surprising considering it was the first game of the season, Copper Hills quickly got back to their style of play and started to control the tempo as the game went on. They started to dominate on both sides of the ball, outscoring Skyridge 22-6 in the quarter and taking a comfortable 34-22 lead into the break.

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“Honestly, it just became about having composure. They’re a really good team and they got athletes everywhere. They play really hard so adjusting to that speed was difficult for us in the first quarter. We told them to just take a deep breath and calm down. We felt like if we could just work the press break like we know we’ll be just fine, and the girls did a good job of doing that in the second quarter,” said Timpson.

The home side didn’t let up for the rest of the game, never allowing Skyridge back into the game.

Copper Hills will be hard pressed to find a more challenging opponent to open their season than Skyridge. While it may only be one game, Timpson knows this was a good test for his team to see where they may stack up against the best.

“I think it helps us understand early on the intensity that is needed to win against really good teams. Skyridge is going to be a great team all year and it’s easy to like playing a hard time when you win, but at the same time it helps us prepare and magnifies the areas we need to work on as a team because up until this point we have only been playing against each other in practice. We got a tough schedule and it’s only going to get harder for us so this was a good win for sure,” said Timpson.

In the losing effort, Skyridge was led in scoring by Merceius Mili who had 14 points and added two rebounds in the opening game.