St. Mary's and Mesa Mountain View made it a three-title day for Arizona on Thursday as the Lady Knights and Lady Toros prevailed in their respective divisions of the Nike Tournament of champions girls basketball event at Hamilton High School. Arizona schools had never won more than one division in a session in the previous 15 Nike TOC's.  Chandler won the first of three titles for the day  with a win in the early afternoon over Mission Bay (San Diego, Calif.).

St. Mary's won its game, 79-69, over Riverdale Baptist of Upper Marlboro, Md. in the Joe Smith Divsion.  The victory was dimmed by a scary 20 minutes that took place late in the third period.

That''s when Riverdale Baptist coach Diane Richardson was temporarily knocked unsconscious in a colllison with one of her players on the Riverdale sideline. Trainers immediately attended to Richardson and paramedics arrrvied a bit later for a double-check. Richardson sat up for several minutes and convinced paramedics by signing off that she was OK. Richardson finished out coaching the game from her bench.

Courtney Ekmark and Shilpa Tummala combined for 50 points (26 and 24, respectively) for St. Mary's, which lived up to its national billing with a strong tourney showing. St. Mary's dulled any significant rally by Riverdale by making 23 of 37 free throws in the fourth quarter.

St. Mary's (9-0) snapped a 17-17 tie in the second period with six minutes left and was never in danger again. The Lady Knights improved their lead to 35-26 at hafltime and to double-digits most of the rest of the way.

Jordan Jensen's putback with eight seconds left broke a 47-47 tie and Mountain View squeezed out a 51-47 win over Pinnacle in the Mike Desper Division. Jensen finished with a team-high 15 points as Mountain View improved to 13-1.

Mountain View got a lift from the little sister of standout Arnecia Hawkins, who missed the game due to an ankle sprain suffered the night before late in its victory. Freshman Armani Hawkins came off the bench to score 14 points. Mountain View has now played in its two invitationals this season finishing first and second (earlier this month at the La Jolla Sweet Sixteen Invitational). La Jolla Country Day, the host of that tournament and its winner, also won the John Anderson Division of the NIke on Thursday by beating Academy of Holy Cross (Kensington, Md),

Pinnacle (12-2) got a big game from guard Sydney Wiese, who tallied 24 poiints. The loss snapped a 10-game winning streak for Pinnacle. Mountain View ran its current winning streak to eight.