COLORADO SPRINGS - It takes considerable time and talent to advance to the third round of the high school state basketball tournament.

For the top-seeded Highlands Ranch girls team, it didn't only require 21 wins in its 24 games. The Falcons also arrived for their Sharon Wilch Region Sweet 16 game after a four-hour bus ride to the World Arena and took down Doherty 84-35.

A traffic accident south of Castle Rock forced traffic off Interstate 25, and the Falcons' trip was further slowed by two other mishaps in the northbound lanes of the interstate near Monument Hill. "We saw every little town and detour on the way here," Falcons coach Caryn Jarocki said. "But (the Colorado High School Activities Association) was very generous and allowed us 30 minutes to warm up."

The sparse arena crowd finally got to see the real Falcons in the final three quarters of the game. Highlands Ranch, the defending Class 5A champion, spotted the Spartans a 10-4 lead and ran away with the game after that.

The Falcons outscored Doherty 63-18 in the final three quarters.

"After the first quarter, we really picked it up and stopped getting down on each other and just came together," forward Alyssa Fressle said. "We finally started showing what we can do on the offensive end and the defensive end. I think that's what turned it around."

Fressle did much of the turnaround work herself. The 5-foot-11 junior forward scored 19 points, two above her season average, grabbed four rebounds, handed out five assists and had four steals. Jade Davis led the Falcons with 22 points, most coming on driving layups.

Doherty (19-7) figured to be vulnerable inside. Its tallest player, 6-foot senior Tametria Thomas, sat out after suffering a concussion last week in a collision with a Denver East player.

D - Janae Deas 4 2-4 10, Tricia Weldon 2 3-3 8, Amy Crockett 0 1-2 1, Stephanie Rossoll 4 4-6 12, Hannah Larsen 2 0-0 4, Aimee Moore 0 0-2 0. Totals 12 10-17 35.

HR - Alyssa Fressle 9 1-4 19, Meagan Fulps 3 0-0 7, Brady Tsukamaki 0 2-2 2, Hannah Breidel 3 0-0 7, Jaclyn Thoman 3 3-3 9, Caitlin Hawkins 1 0-0 2, Kelsie Mallon 1 0-0 2, Jordan Floyd 2 0-0 4, Melisa Ryba 2 2-2 6, Jade Davis 10 0-0 22, Jenessa Burke 2 0-0 4. Totals 36 8-11 84.

Three-point goals - D, Weldon; HR, Fulps, Breidel, Davis 2.