DPS foes Denver East, Northfield one win away from facing off for 6A Colorado girls basketball title

A simmering Denver Public Schools rivalry is two big wins away from a historic main event.

Denver East and Northfield are playing in opposite sides of the bracket of the Class 6A Final Four on Thursday. If both win, it will set up the first all-DPS championship game in the half-century since girls basketball became a sanctioned CHSAA sport.

There is no love lost between the programs, who have played a handful of physical, tense games over the last two seasons. That includes three showdowns this year and last year, over which the re-established old guard Denver East owns a 5-1 record against upstart, relatively new Northfield.

“It’s been a really competitive rivalry between the top teams in the DPS,” said Denver East head coach Carl Mattei, “and this has been brewing for the last couple of years for bragging rights in the city.”

The Angels have seen a resurgence under Mattei, who is in his fourth season on City Park Esplanade. Denver East is the last DPS girls team to win a hoops title, accomplishing the feat in 2010, and is one of only two DPS programs to do so, along with Montbello in 1997.

Mattei, who built Regis Jesuit into a powerhouse, went to eight title games and won three of them in his 18-year tenure with the Raiders. He was initially talked into applying for the Denver East job by a couple key DPS stakeholders, including Angels boys coach Rudy Carey and ex-longtime district athletic director John Andrew.

‘They don’t need to go play in the suburbs’

Mattei said he took the job because “when I looked at what Denver East could be, I thought it could be the Cherry Creek of DPS (girls basketball).” The Angels were successful under the prior coach, Dwight Berry, who led them to the 2010 title. But Denver East struggled to consistently make deep tournament runs.

“I had to get the kids to believe that they could compete with the Grandviews, the Cherry Creeks, the Regis Jesuits, the Highlands Ranches,” Mattei said. “Players in (the Denver East neighborhood) can actually stay in the city and represent our city, and be part of being the jewel of the city that is the Denver East Angels. They don’t need to go play in (the suburbs).

“That’s what Rudy and (Denver East principal) Terita Walker wanted for this program, and I think that’s where we’re at right now.”

The Angels are headlined by senior forward Mairead Hearty, a San Diego State commit who is averaging 16.9 points a game. Junior guard Grace Hall, a Division I recruit, is averaging 12.3 points. And senior sharpshooter Liana Valdez, a Western Nebraska commit who is a four-year starter like Hearty, can make teams pay from beyond the arc.

Hearty, who lives a couple blocks from Denver East, is jazzed with the ascension of the program at the school she walks to. The Angels went from a first-round playoff exit in Mattei’s first season, to the Sweet 16 the next, to the Great 8 last year and now the Final Four.

“I’ve been in this neighborhood my whole life, watching games (when I was little), so I’m so excited to be in this situation with this team,” Hearty said. “I couldn’t have dreamed it up any better what we’ve been able to accomplish the last four years.”

While much of Denver East’s roster is homegrown, the Angels’ other X-factor is an import.

Sophomore Mia Avramovic is averaging almost a triple-double with 10.1 points, 10.0 rebounds and 9.0 blocks, a swat rate which ranks second in the nation. The 6-foot-6 center moved to Colorado from Serbia, where she’s played on her country’s youth national team, before the school year began.

She’s still extremely raw, but Mattei says Avramovic “has made tremendous strides this season.”

“At home (in Serbia), she just had to be a shot blocker — she wasn’t really allowed to shoot or dribble,” Mattei said. “But she’s developed her game so much that she has offers from Oregon State and Utah. She’s been invited to the Nike Elite Camp in June. She’ll be playing with (a high-level club) this summer. All this after she came in and initially really struggled with her ball skills.”

Driving Avramovic’s development is Mattei’s coaching staff stacked with his former players.

That includes Diani Akigbogun, a two-time Ms. Colorado Basketball for Mattei at Regis Jesuit who is his lead assistant; Celena Miller, who played for Mattei’s club team and then at DU, and is a rising R&B star under the stage name Lady Los; Vanessa Espinoza, who played for Mattei at Douglas County before going on to CSU; and Alisha Godette, who played club for Mattei and later at Arizona State.

“Forget the state — I’ve got the best staff in the country,” Mattei said. “It’s incredible what I have as coaches and how they are working to develop our talent.”

With those familiar faces behind Mattei on the bench, he’ll take on an old foe in Thursday’s Final Four to set up a possible shot against Northfield in the title.

Mattei and Highlands Ranch boss Caryn Jarocki, the state’s all-time winningest girls coach, developed a rivalry when Mattei was at Regis Jesuit. The Raiders and the Falcons met in the title game three times, with Highlands Ranch winning in 2008 and ’11 and Regis Jesuit triumphing in 2013.

Denver East and Highlands Ranch played earlier this season, a 51-49 win by the Angels on Dec. 9. Both teams had key players injured in that game, including Hearty. Mattei believes his team’s tough out-of-state schedule, which included trips to New York and California, has prepared the Angels for the rematch.

“We have to keep an eye on (Falcons leading scorer) Kimora Banks-Thomas, because she can light it up from anywhere,” Mattei said. “And we can’t get into a run-and-gun game with them. We play two different types of basketball, and when we beat them at their place, we tried to control tempo.”

Northfield a program on the rise

Meanwhile, Northfield faces top-seeded Cherokee Trail. The Nighthawks are trying to get back to the championship after losing in the Class 5A title game to Roosevelt two years ago.

Northfield’s heart and soul is junior guard Madison Bethel, the daughter of head coach Sydney Price. The Nighthawks also feature a trio of transfers who have accelerated their status as a Class 6A force despite the program only being eight years old. Junior forward Delaney Dennis transferred from Denver East prior to last school year, while junior twin guards London Taylor and Paris Taylor transferred from Cherry Creek before this school year. The Taylors were granted immediate eligibility by CHSAA.

London Taylor is the team’s leading scorer with 14.6 points per game, while Bethel, Dennis and Paris Taylor are also averaging double figures. Price declined an interview request for this story, saying she wanted to “remain focused on the game plan during this pivotal and important time.”

Cherokee Trail head coach Tammi Statewright says her Cougars “have to be able to handle the physicality of the DPS way of play” as CT vies to make its first title game.

“I feel like (the Centennial League) is pretty physical, but in a different way,” Statewright said. “We got to be able to handle Northfield’s ball pressure because they’re tough, they’re strong. If we don’t handle that well, we’re not going to make it through.”

Northfield takes on Cherokee Trail on Thursday at 5:45 p.m. at the Denver Coliseum, with Denver East and Highlands Ranch following at 7:15 p.m.

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