Todd Ervin can be a difficult guy to impress. Yet even the ninth-year Bend High coach was shaking his head Tuesday night.

“If I could have envisioned how we would have played tonight, that was it,” Ervin said. “And I don’t have very many visions.”

The Lava Bears caught fire early in their Civil War girls basketball matchup at Mountain View, hitting 10 of 15 shots in the first quarter to build a 15-point lead. Bend rarely fell out of rhythm, as shown by an 11-for-15 clip in the third quarter. And in finishing with a season high in points scored, Class 5A No. 9-ranked Bend clinched at least a share of the Intermountain Conference championship with a dominant 75-29 victory over the Cougars.

“This is huge,” said the Lava Bears’ Cambree Scott, who scored 10 of her 14 points in the third quarter and finished with eight rebounds. “We only have one more game before playoffs. So us coming together and playing this well before playoffs is making us stronger as a team, and it’s going to help us play the best we can.”

The Lava Bears sprinted out of the blocks with eight straight points, including six by Kaycee Brown. Mountain View (2-9 IMC, 8-14 overall) trimmed the gap to 10-4 before Bend sped away with a 23-8 surge that put the visitors up 33-12 midway through the second quarter.

“That doesn’t happen very often for us, so I’ll just take it as often as it comes,” Ervin said of his team’s scorching 59.3 percent shooting for the game. “But our shot selection was good, and that’s part of it. We were finding people and we had good opportunities to shoot the ball when we were balanced.”

Bend (10-1, 19-4) continued its stellar shooting in the third quarter, during which the Lava Bears hit 11 of 15 shots while Mountain View missed all 14 of its attempts as Bend built a 59-18 lead heading into the fourth quarter.

“Obviously it’s frustrating,” said Cougars coach Steve Riper. “A tough way to play against a good team like that. … We’re down one of our better kids (Mia Morey) who’s out with a knee injury, so we’re losing some scoring there. Everything’s got to go pretty close to perfect, and then when our shots don’t go down, it’s tough. It’s demoralizing, and it shows on the defensive end.”

Bailey Dickerson led Mountain View with seven points and five rebounds but was just 2 of 18 shooting. Jillian Sisson had six points and three boards, and Julia Towle added six points for the Cougars, who lost their ninth straight against Bend.

“Let’s hope that we take away from this that these young kids don’t want to experience that kind of defeat again and resolve to obviously play a lot better Friday,” said Riper, whose team ends the season Friday at Summit. “But (we’re) looking forward to next year and improving and making sure those kinds of things get taken care of. Right now, we just don’t have the same bodies to match up with their size. It’s just really hard for us.”

Bend’s size was on full display as the Bears outrebounded Mountain View 38-16, including 12 offensive boards for Bend.

Caitlin Wheeler scored 12 points in the first half en route to 14 for the game and chipped in with six rebounds and two blocks. Brown contributed 12 points, six assists and four rebounds for the Lava Bears, who benefited from 11 scorers in their 10th straight win.

“We had kind of like a lull for a little while when we weren’t playing very good and we weren’t really connecting. And all of a sudden we started really getting in a groove and playing as one,” Scott said. “On our team, we don’t really have to rely on one person. We really look to get the ball to other people, so we can just trust each other. There’s not pressure on one person to be the only scorer.”

The Lava Bears entered Tuesday with a half-game lead over Ridgeview for first place in the conference standings. While the Ravens (10-2 IMC) defeated Redmond High on Tuesday, Bend’s win secured for the Bears at least a share of the league title. A win in their regular-season finale against visiting Redmond on Friday will earn the Lava Bears their fifth IMC championship in six years and the league’s automatic bid into the first round of the 5A state playoffs.

“The big thing is I hope they believe in how they’re playing, and that we can continue to play at a high level,” Ervin said. “But every game’s a challenge. It looks good right now, but it’s a pretty fickle game. It can turn pretty quick. We’ll see if we can continue to build on it and play.”

— Reporter: 541-383-0307, 
glucas@bendbulletin.com.