Tall Longmont center fouls up Cheyenne Mountain

GOLDEN • Longmont’s Megan Carpenter proved too tall of an obstacle for Cheyenne Mountain to overcome Saturday.

The 6-foot-5 center put the Indians in foul trouble early and scored a game-high 20 points, leading the Trojans to a 60-50 win in the 4A state quarterfinals at Colorado School of Mines.

“It’s hard to stop someone that towers over you,” Cheyenne Mountain sophomore forward Janae Vander Ploeg said. “We tried our best, and we left it all on the court.”

The Trojans, who led 26-23 after a back-and-forth first half, went on a 12-6 run to open a nine-point third-quarter lead.

Then senior Vivan Snider grabbed her own rebound and scored a putback to spark a 10-2 run that pulled the Indians within a point heading into the fourth quarter.

“That’s some gutsy girls right there, and I’m really proud of them,” Cheyenne Mountain coach Janie Mueller said. “They just got out there and hustled and did what they needed to do.”

Vander Ploeg and junior Danielle Pederson — both 5-foot-10 — kept Carpenter in check before finding themselves in foul trouble.

Vander Ploeg, who finished with 16 points, picked up her fourth personal with 2:19 left in the third. Pederson, who scored 11 points, got her third foul early in the fourth quarter, when Carpenter scored four straight points to put Longmont up 48-41 with 4:27 remaining in the game.

“They knew that I had two girls in there that couldn’t foul,” Mueller said. “And they took advantage of that.”
From there, Longmont (23-2) steadily increased the lead to as much as 13 points as Cheyenne Mountain (20-6) struggled to maintain possession and hit shots.

“They weren’t falling for us,” said Mueller, who starts two juniors and two sophomores. “But you gotta play through that. You have good nights and you have bad nights, and this was not one of our best nights.”

Longmont advances to Thursday’s state semifinals in Boulder, where they will face Mullen.