Chatfield boys hoops stampede into 5A Jeffco League play
LITTLETON — Chatfield’s boys basketball continued its impressive surge out of the gates to start the 2021 season.
The Chargers (3-0 record, 1-0 in league) opened up Class 5A Jeffco conference play Monday night with a 79-69 victory over area rival Dakota Ridge. The game was originally scheduled to be played at Dakota Ridge High School, but because of a deep cleaning at DRHS, the game was moved hours before tipoff to Chatfield High School.
A bit of an earlier start and location change could have spelled doom for the Eagles, who suffered defeats of 35 and 56 points last week to Legend and George Washington. However, Dakota Ridge was in the game the whole way against the Chargers.
“It was really close. It was tough,” said Chatfield senior Dylan Carter of the South Jeffco rivalry game that was a one-possession game until late in the fourth quarter. “We let them (Dakota Ridge) stay in it. We gave up a lot of open 3-pointers. Our defense was kind of lacking, but our offense was going well for us.”
Carter and junior Chase Miller led the Chargers with 18 points each. Senior Nate Jacobson pitched in 13 points and senior Ethan Johnson had 10 points. Chatfield’ fifth starter Ethan Goroski was just short of hitting double-figures with 9 points.
“Any of our guys can score 20 points on any night,” Carter said. “I think we have a lot of good scorers and shooters on this team.”
Carter and Johnson closed out the game going 7-for-8 from the free-throw line in the final minute to prevent Dakota Ridge getting the upset victory.
“We knew it was going to be a fight. Rivalry games always are,” Chatfield coach Erik Buehler said. “Dakota Ridge has some really skilled players and are very similar to us. We knew it was going to be a battle the whole time.”
Dakota Ridge seniors Gino Corridori and Hunter Hickman combined for 43 points in the loss. Eagles’ coach Sean Kovar was pleased to see the likes of sophomores Carson Evans and Alex Rodriguez knock down some shots.
The Eagles were able to make 11 3-pointers to stay within reach of the Chargers for the entire game.
“We are going to keep fighting and respond to adversity,” Kovar said after the loss. “We are going to continue to get better every single day.”
Dakota Ridge (0-3, 0-1) will have a bit of practice time this week before trying to capture its first win of the season. The Eagles are scheduled to return to their home court to face Arvada West on Friday, Feb. 5.
“The growth already from game one to game three has been tremendous,” Kovar said.
Chatfield is scheduled to face Bear Creek on the road Wednesday night. The Chargers have been impressive offensively averaging over 80 points per game.
“Offense was kind of our bugaboo at times last year,” Buehler said. “We would go on these o-fer stretches. We focused a lot in the offseason on that.”
The 8-game losing streak Chatfield suffered through to end its regular season last year might be a distant memory, but Carter still wants the Chargers to finish as strong as they have started this season.
“We don’t want what happened last year to repeat this season,” Carter said. “We are giving it our all with all these seniors.”
