By Don Ketchum

The list of girls basketball teams capable of beating Phoenix St. Mary’s is blank right now.

However, there might be a few that can be jotted down in pencil when the Division I state tournament begins next week.

Perhaps the most likely candidate is Mesa Mountain View.

The Lady Toros possess good perimeter passing skills, a decent inside presence and accurate shooters. Whether it is enough to challenge St. Mary’s remains to be seen.

Those qualities were more than enough on Tuesday night (Feb. 7), when Mountain View cruised to a 50-26 victory over Phoenix Horizon in the first round of the Division I, Section III tournament at Scottsdale Chaparral.

Mountain View coach Henry Bribiescas was concerned about how his top-seeded team would respond against Horizon, the No. 8 seed.

“We have only one senior (Arnecia Hawkins) and this is the first playoff game for a lot of our girls,’’ he said.

The coach said his team came out tight early, when it built a lead possibly about half of what it could have been. The Lady Toros (25-2) couldn’t figure out how to stop Horizon’s Madison Austin, who scored 14 of the 16 first-half points for the Huskies (16-13).

She scored four more points in the third quarter and got into foul trouble. She was surprisingly left in the game and fouled out with 2:40 left in the third quarter.

Whatever chance Horizon had of getting back into it disappeared. The Huskies scored only six points after that.

Meanwhile, Mountain View picked up steam as the game went on, working the ball for the higher-percentage shots, hitting the boards and showing improvement on defense.

“We have good ball movement. We don’t necessarily look for any one person,’’ Bribiescas said.

Rene Coggins hit four 3-pointers for the game and Hawkins had one. Coggins scored 16 points, Hawkins 12 and Jordan Jensen 11.

Jensen, a 6-foot-2 junior, and Natalie Mecham, a 6-foot junior, looked strong inside.

“They are both working together a lot better,’’ Bribiescas said.

Mountain View advances to Thursday’s (Feb. 9) semifinals against No. 4 seed Anthem Boulder Creek, which defeated No. 5 Phoenix Mountain Pointe 54-47 in an earlier game on Tuesday.