LOUISVILLE >> The girls basketball players at Monarch said they had no issue with drawing longtime power Mullen in opening round of the postseason, refusing to use any perceived seeding slight as motivation against the reigning three-time Class 4A champs Tuesday night.

“We kind of just wanted to prove we were ready,” star guard Natalie Guanella said.

No questions there.

Arezo Safi had 18 points, Guanella scored 16 and the fourth-seeded Coyotes opened their hoped deep run in the 6A playoffs with a commanding 60-42 victory.

“We really wanted to show that we’re a good team, not just because of who we’re playing,” said Safi, whose Coyotes outscored the Front Range League by an average of 28.7 points this winter. “We were ready for a challenge.”

From the very start, too.

Guanella scored seven of her points in the first quarter for Monarch (23-1). The Mustangs (11-13) had zero.

An emphatic opening statement from a team that was stuck with only the No. 4 seed in the bracket, even after 16 straight wins, played out like a poem — if read by the lead singer of a death metal band.

Mullen, hitting everything but net early on, didn’t score for the first 8 minutes, 33 seconds of regulation. Following that, its offensive rhythm only somewhat tempered.

More than one-third of its points in the half came on Keaton Arangua-Egbert’s buzzer-beater from halfcourt to pull them within 21-8 at the break.

“We feel like we can control ourselves defensively,” Monarch coach Mike Blakely said. “If we can get to the point where we dictate defensively, we can have a good basketball game. Maybe we shoot well, maybe we don’t. Maybe we score, maybe we don’t. But that end of the court, I think we’ve convinced ourselves that that’s where we can decide our fate.”The Coyotes led by as many as 18 in the third quarter following consecutive 3s from Hayley Luther and Safi, making it 37-19. Mullen got only as close as 10 in the fourth, seeing its season end in a loss for the first time since 2018 — coming before its three state titles and the cancellation of the 2020 4A girls final at the outset of the pandemic.

As part of the win, Safi became the fifth different player to lead the Coyotes in points over the last two weeks. She had a pair of 3s and went 6 for 6 from the line.

Amelia Rosin, who had 11 in the win, Luther, 10, as well as Caroline Walley (five) and Guanella have also led the team in scoring since Feb. 7.

“Between those five kids, it can be anybody,” Blakely said. “I don’t know if it’s as much that it makes us diverse, but what it does is gives us a sense that if someone is having an off-night or missing shots, that they can rely on everyone else to bring them up. We don’t have to count on one kid doing all the heavy lifting.”

Monarch will host No. 13 Ralston Valley in the second round Friday night. Monarch beat the Arvada school by 13 on Jan. 6.