D’Evelyn girls basketball stays perfect at 19-0

DENVER — D’Evelyn’s girls basketball team is officially one conference win away from the Class 5A/4A Jeffco League title.

The Jaguars — No. 2 in the CHSAANow.com 4A girls basketball rankings — needs either a victory at Dakota Ridge (Wednesday, Feb. 8) or at home against Green Mountain (Friday, Feb. 10) to wrap up its first league title since the 2014-15 season.

“We are really excited,” D’Evelyn senior Rebecca Taylor said of having a chance to win the league title next week.

D’Evelyn (19-0, 9-0 in league) remained undefeated on the season with a 63-37 home victory Saturday over Golden (11-7, 4-3) to take one step closer to the Jaguars first league title in nearly a decade.

“Today I pointed out that we are already down to Game 19 and we only have four more regular-season games left,” D’Evelyn coach Chris Olson said. “It does go by fast. Having done this for so long, I tell the girls every league win you get to enjoy it. At the end of the game you just have to enjoy it. They are hard to come by in this league.”

Handing D’Evelyn a loss has become near impossible this season. In fact, the Jaguars are the only undefeated girls basketball team remaining in the top three classifications — 6A, 5A and 4A — with the regular season wrapping up in two weeks.

D’Evelyn jumped out to an early 17-0 lead on the Demons, but Golden did fight back. Junior Presley Kirkpatrick (9 points) and sophomore Sage Manning (7 points) led the Demons coming off the bench.

“Twenty-three games is a long season. You are bound to have some ups and downs,” said Olson of some of the late-second quarter struggles that the Demons caused. “A lot of credit to Golden. They play hard, fast and physical. We haven’t had that all the time in our (league) games.”

D’Evelyn was able to extend its lead back up to more than 20 points in the fourth quarter with a big second half by junior Peyton Marvel, who finished with a game-high 21 points. Taylor scored a season-high 20 points, including a pair of 3-pointers in the first minute of the game that got the Jaguars going.

“When I was warming up I felt hot in the moment,” Taylor said. “We knew Golden was good and we had to kick hard first to get that lead.”

Junior Macy Scheer had 17 points for D’Evelyn as the Jaguars head into the home stretch of the regular season that will wrap up with a pair of non-league games against a mini-tournament format Feb. 15 and Feb. 17. The Jaguars will likely face a combination of Littleton, Green Mountain and Standley Lake in those final two games before dropping down to the 32-team 4A state tournament.

Golden was No. 23 in RPI and should have no problem making the 32-team 5A state tournament.