The Millennium Tigers claimed their third consecutive 5A girls basketball title on Saturday. This year they were led by first year head coach Kevin Thomas, who took over the program after former coach Courtland Rojeck stepped down last season. The Tigers defeated No. 5 Flowing Wells to claim this year's championship in dominating fashion, with a 62-39 win in a game that they never trailed at Mesquite high school.
The Tigers knew that they would be back in this position early in the season, but not before a learning curve that saw them drop three out of four games in a one-week stretch in the 2020-21 regular season. The last of the three losses is the one Thomas knew was going to lead this team to its potential.
“When we lost to Sunrise Mountain we were down by 20 and we ended up coming back and sending it to overtime. It was clear to the girls if we could do that against a team like that we could play that way anytime," he said.
The team rallied from that point and did not lose a game the rest of the season. From there, the Tigers won each game by an average of 28 points.
After finishing 11-4 in the regular season, the Tigers entered the postseason as the No. 3 seed. A position that isn’t the comfort of the No. 1 they’ve grown accustomed to over the years, but still gave them home court until the semifinals. The Tigers dominated No. 14 Cienega, battled No. 6 Williams Field and got revenge against rival No. 2 Verrado, a team who shocked Millennium with a victory in the regular season, before reaching the title game.
One of the leaders on the team summed up the feeling that all who support Tiger basketball felt in the gym following the final championship buzzer.
“It feels amazing. There’s no better feeling than winning a state championship,” said senior guard Kassidy Dixon, who is a Grand Canyon University signee.
When asked about how she felt about joining the Antelopes next year, Dixon did not hold back her excitement.
“GCU is a family, so I’m ready to go. Lopes up," she said.
Dixon led the team with 20 points and 14 rebounds, scoring a double-double in her final high school game. Defensively, Dixon and the Tigers held Flowing Wells to just 25 percent from the field.
Millennium made 7-11 first quarter shots as well as 11-22 in the first half to build an early lead. Seniors Dixon and Reese Grimsley combined for 17 first-half points as the Tigers never looked back, leading for all but the first 13 seconds of the game. Grimsley wrapped up her high school career with 9 points and 8 rebounds. The team’s leading scorer, freshman Ellie Guiney finished with 6 points, 4 assists and 9 rebounds as well.
In the second half, sophomore sharp-shooter Mia Amundsen made four threes in a row, each hitting from the corner. Amundsen finished with 18 points (6-10 from three) and 2 steals.
“She’s a beast, We’ve been dishing it to her all year, and today she got hot and started knocking them down," said Dixon of the sophomore guard.
Lastly, Dixon talked about the effort and struggle the team had to go through in a year that was far from normal.
“We played every practice and every game like it was our last,” she said, “And in a season like this one, we had no clue if there would even be playoffs.”
That sentiment was also shared by Thomas.
“The girls would be at the school by 6 a.m. in the summer and get up even earlier and always show up ready to work and put in effort even when we didn’t know if a season was going to happen," he said.
The Tigers will likely return all but two starters next season and hope that the experience the younger players received this season can correlate into another championship in Goodyear.
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