4A boys basketball semifinals: Resurrection Christian, Holy Family, to square off in title game
By Jon E. Yunt
Photo: Flip Dalfonso
The Class 4A boys basketball Final Four was played on Thursday afternoon at the Denver Coliseum. Resurrection Christian and Holy Family both won their respective games and advanced to the state championship game. They will face off in the championship game at 11:45 a.m. on Saturday.
(17) Holy Family 65, (4) Eagle Ridge Academy 41
The task for the Holy Family Tigers boys basketball team was tall… literally.
The Class 4A fourth-seeded Eagle Ridge Academy Warriors didn’t have a starter under 6-foot-4, while the 17-seeded Tigers’ tallest starter measured in at 6-3.
Maybe that puts to bed the theory that size doesn’t matter.
The Tigers continued their magical run through the Class 4A tournament — including the Metro League gauntlet of (1) Kent Denver in the Sweet 16 and (4) Colorado Academy in the Great 8 — with a 65-41 victory over the Warriors at the Denver Coliseum and advance to their first championship game since winning it all in 2014.
“Someone had to gang tackle,” said Holy Family senior Grayden Harkness, who drew ERA stud Hunter Hill and held him to zero field goals on Thursday afternoon. “We all took our jobs seriously and we got our jobs done.”
The Tigers and their smothering defense took control of the game from the opening tip.They made the Warriors backcourt ball handlers work on every possession and after one quarter Eagle Ridge had two times as many turnovers (8) as they did points.
Holy Family (16-11) didn’t take advantage on the offensive end until the second quarter. They led just 8-4 after 1, but then their guards got cooking. Senior point guard Eric Quintana and senior shooting guard Rocco Bridges as well as junior Gabe Tafoya were instrumental in an 11-0, and ultimately a 14-4, second quarter run that saw the lead balloon to 22-8 at the half.
“The coaches prepared well and the guys followed the scout well,” said Holy Family coach Pete Villcco, whose team turned the Warriors over22 times and held them to 40 percent shooting. “Grayden competed his butt off, and Hunter Hill is a good player and we held him to no field goals.
“Ball pressure from our guard made it hard for them to get the ball into the post. We knew we were at a size disadvantage, so for the last two days we worked on our post defense.”
Holy Family slowly pulled away in the second half and the confident shooting that they had in the Great 8 last week against CA carried over. Quintana was a perfect 4-for-4 from 3-point range en route to finishing with 15 points. The Tigers balanced attack also featured 13 from Bridges, 11 from Tafoya and 15 off the bench from junior Jaxon Grable — whose dad Keith (who is on the coaching staff) played in the Class 5A title game for Horizon back in 1994.
“We all just stuck together,” said Harkness, whose team lost eight of 10 games during a month-long stretch in late January and into February. “Now here we are.”
Eagle Ridge’s Peyton Owen was the only Warriors player in double figures with 11. Both Kyren Allen (9 points) and Hill (3) were held well under their season averages.
(2) Resurrection Christian 64, (6) Lutheran 53
In much the same way as the first game, the No. 2 Resurrection Christian Cougars established themselves in the early going with their defense against No. 6 Lutheran and forced the Lions into an early hole that they were never able to get out of.
The Cougars never trailed on Thursday afternoon and moved into Saturday’s state title game against Holy Family with a 64-53 win over the Lions. It has been a long time coming for coach Ryan Yoder and his Cougars, who were the the No. 1 overall seed in the 2020 Class 3A state tournament and were in the semifinals before the pandemic ended their season.
“We feel like we owe 2020 a victory because they got ripped off from a state championship,” said Yoder, whose team was set to play Manual in those semifinals. “We’ve been playing this year partly for us, but more for (our student body and community).”
The Cougars (23-4) were up 43-28 going into the fourth quarter and it didn’t take long for the Lions (18-9) to try and make the comeback by sending Rez to line and forcing them to hold on from there.
Mission accomplished.
Rez scored all 21 of their fourth quarter points from the line, missing just six in the process. Marcus Phillips and Jackson Bethune each went 5-of-6 from the line and big-man Jacob Barker was a perfect 5-for-5.
“We pride ourselves on being great free throw shooters and we work on it a lot,” said Yoder, whose team had to endure a lengthy fourth quarter after the Lions started fouling with five minutes to play. “I was a little surprised they started fouling that early. But we have great ball handlers and we were just going to run the clock, which was our plan, but they did what they had to do.”
Sophomore guard Ty Yoder led the Cougars with 17 points and Phillips (11) as well as Cade Crutcher (10) fueled a very balanced offensive attack.
It sets up a championship game with a Holy Family team that Ryan Yoder and his team is somewhat familiar with after a couple of summer games, but one they haven’t studied that much during the regular season.
“We know (Holy Family) well and we had great close games with them both times (this summer),” Yoder said. “We were 100 percent on this game as you could imagine, so now we have to see what we can do to slow them down and we have to take care of the ball against a really athletic press.”
Lutheran was paced by Braydon Jacob’s 17 points and the got 13 more from Brendan Koolenga.
