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Metro gets rocked by Regis, tames Lions
By Eric Lansing
lansing@mscd.edu

Photo by Jason Small • jsmall4@mscd.edu Metro guards Danielle Ellerington, left, and Megan Johnson, right, try to force a jumpball on UC-Colorado Springs guard Lauren Holm. The Roadrunners took the game against the Mountain Lions 74-60.

The Lopez sisters from Regis are legends in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference, and they continued to show the league how great they are in an amazing upset victory over the No. 18-ranked Roadrunners, with a final score of 70-50 on Jan. 26 at Regis Fieldhouse.

“It’s definitely a one-two punch,” Metro head coach Dave Murphy said. “They’re just not rah-rah verbal kids. They’re kids that actually perform. They find ways to get their engine running, and once they get their engine running, they get their teammates to follow.”

Denise and Diana Lopez combined for 33 points, 18 rebounds and 11 steals in a game that featured two of the top conference teams fighting it out for first place in the RMAC.

Both teams were on four-game winning streaks. Metro had an 8-2 record in the conference with Regis holding a 9-1 record in the conference.

Defensive rebounding hurt the Roadrunners early on, as Regis missed shots but collected 10 offensive rebounds in the first 10 minutes of the game. The Rangers finished the game with 19 offensive boards giving them 18 second-chance points.

Danielle Ellerington, Metro’s fourth-leading scorer at 9.8 points per game, had a rough first half, grabbing two early fouls that forced her to the bench for the rest of the half. She only had two points, going 0-for-3 from the field. She also committed three turnovers in the first half to go long with that second foul at the 8:35 mark, when her team was down 21-10.

“All year long we’ve had kids come off the bench and come through,” Murphy said about Ellerington’s absence. “We do not put a lot of stock in one player. We play positions by committee. Everybody has to be able to play two positions.”

Denise Lopez was a thorn in Metro’s side on both sides of the ball for the entire first half. The Roadrunners had cut the lead to nine points with 4:52 left in the half, but the Regis senior forward made a 3-point shot to put the lead back to double digits. After a Metro free throw, Denise Lopez came right back to hit another one from long range, putting the score at 33-19. Her stats for the first half were phenomenal, shooting 6-of-10 from the field to score 19 points, grabbing five rebounds and coming away with four steals.

The second half was the same story for the Roadrunners, except that it was Diana Lopez who took on the scoring role. The senior guard scored 10 of her 12 points in the second half.

The lead got as high as 23, and the ’Runners four-game winning streak began to fall by the wayside. With five minutes left to play, chants of “overrated” echoed the Fieldhouse as Regis, who is not nationally ranked, pulled off the upset against No. 18 Metro.

“They really played with a lot of emotion,” Murphy said. “They were very angry about getting misrepresented in the national and regional polls. They felt like they were disrespected and we knew they were going to come with a lot of fire because they were trying to get some respect.”

Forward Cassondra Bratton, who had been sidelined with a knee injury the past two weeks, led the Roadrunners in scoring with 11 points, while grabbing five rebounds. The only other Metro player to score in double figures was Harris, who put in 10 points.

Ellerington and the ’Runners got back into their winning ways the following night by defeating the Mountain Lions 74-60 at the Lions’ Den in Colorado Springs.

Ellerington rebounded from her rough night at Regis by scoring 16 points, pulling down eight rebounds and dishing out three assists.

Metro outrebounded the UC-Colorado Springs 48-35, including 24 offensive rebounds.

The game was close at the half with Metro clinging to a two-point lead, but the Roadrunners shot 42 percent from the field in the second half, outscoring the Mountain Lions 42-30.

The weekend split gives Metro a 15-4 overall record with an 8-3 record in the RMAC. The ’Runners make their way back home for a two-game series against Nebraska-Kearney Feb. 2 and Chadron State Feb. 3, both at the Auraria Events Center.

Murphy recalls a meeting with the Lopers last year in Kearney, Neb., where Metro took a 104-72 beating.

"When you talk about short-term memory, I am sure … those kids who were here last year all remember Kearney last year,” Murphy said. “They really embarrassed us at their house, they ran the score up, so we are anxiously awaiting their arrival.”