5A boys basketball semifinals: Air Academy, Mesa Ridge, advance to championship
By Steve Smith
Photo: PaulDiSalvoPhotography.com
The Class 5A boys basketball semifinals took place Friday evening at the Denver Coliseum. Air Academy and Mesa Ridge, the two top seeds, won their respective games and advanced to the state championship game. The two Colorado Springs area teams will match up Saturday at 7:15 p.m.
DENVER – Air Academy used its inside game, 23, second-chance points and 27 points from Corbin Garver to turn back Frederick High School 74-59 in the state 5A boys basketball tournament semifinals March 10.
Grant Featherstone wound up with 15 points. Max Howery tossed in 12, and Noah Hellem added 10. Luke Justice and Matias Aldana led the Golden Eagles with 17 points.
The biggest issue for Frederick in the second half – aside from hot shooting by the Kadets (58 percent from the floor in the third quarter) – was the point production from Garver. He scored his 27 points through three quarters, including three from 3-point range.
“When our team can come together, we can get the job done,” Garver said. “If we can trust ourselves to come together, we will get the job done.”
“That’s what I love about these kids. I don’t know who’s going to score,” said Kadets coach Barry Clark. “But they figure it out by the end.”
Justice tweaked an ankle that he hurt in practice before the elite 8 round.
“I couldn’t turn. I couldn’t use my jab step,” Justice said. “When I shot it, I thought it was holding me down.”
“The kids battled. They worked their butts off,” FHS coach Jeff Conway said. “We hit a few shots. But Air Academy is a good team. They shoot the ball well, too. They killed us off the boards. We worked on blocking and rebounding all week. But we didn’t do a good job.”
(2) Mesa Ridge 79, (3) Windsor 52
Mesa Ridge moved into the state 5A title game by beating Windsor 79-52 in the other semifinal March 10 at the Denver Coliseum,
Trei Ginn led the scoring parade for the Grizzlies with 27 points. Bryce Riehl added 20. David Hageman led the Wizards with 22 points. Madden Smiley added nine.
The first half was as even as a 31-29 score might show. There were three lead changes and five ties. Hageman led the Wizards with 11 points. Ginn came off the bench to score 11 points for the Grizzlies.
Mesa Ridge started the second half by clamping down on defense and by outscoring the Wizards 13-3 over the span of four minutes. Riehl and Mekhi Hubbard were responsible for most of that early damage. Then it became a case of finding open players for easy layups. Ginn scored eight of his team’s 12 points between the third and fourth quarters, many on drives to the basket.
“Defense. It’s always defense,” Ginn said. “We try to keep as calm as possible and do our game. Once we freak out, that’s when the score gets close. It’s scary when we’re quiet and work together.”
“I’m so lucky,” said Mesa Ridge coach Joel Babbitt. “Not only do I have good basketball players, I’ve got some really good kids. We had to start playing defense in the second half. They (Windsor) moved really well. But then we got back to defense. We started getting stops. Stops turned to buckets. And then shots started dropping along with it.
“Not to mention, Trei had a killer game.”
