After two high-powered Final Four contests Friday at Denver Coliseum, third-seeded Fossil Ridge and fourth-seeded Denver East remain to play in Saturday’s 6A state championship game.
(3) FOSSIL RIDGE 66, (7) REGIS JESUIT 62
Ten seniors get to play the last game they could possibly play in a Fossil Ridge uniform Saturday, as the program has earned a spot in the state championship game for the second year in a row.
The SaberCats were rightly wary of a Regis Jesuit team that had shown the propensity for coming back from significant deficits in key situations and they saw the expected rally from the Raiders, but were able to finish off a four-point victory that pushed them on to another title game.
Four different Fossil Ridge seniors — Ty Brown, Domenic Leone, Drew Larson and Nick Randall — came through from the free throw line in the final minute to help Fossil Ridge hang on against a Regis Jesuit team coached by Ken Shaw, who ranks third on Colorado’s all-time list of coaching wins.
“I’m not surprised, they are well-coached and they are going to do what they do,” SaberCats coach Matt Johannsen said. “They made it a possession ballgame and I was happy with our kids taking care of the basketball and hitting free throws down the stretch when it mattered.”
Johannsen said his group had resolved to earn redemption from the moment the horn expired last season on its state championship game loss to ThunderRidge.
Fossil Ridge earned the program’s third all-time trip to the finals with an all-around team effort that saw four players finish in double figures in Randall with 18 (plus 12 rebounds), Connor Hayes with 15, Leone with 11 and Brown with 10, while Larson was nearly there with nine.
The SaberCats had a 12-point lead with just under five minutes remaining, but knew that Regis Jesuit — which had come back from the same deficit to knock off No. 2 Rock Canyon in the Great 8 — would make a run and it definitely came.
Fossil Ridge made sure the Raiders (who were led by senior TaRea Fulcher’s 26 points) got no closer than four points, however.
“They are a great team and they play all the way to end,” Randall said. “We watched their game against Rock Canyon and how that ended, so they are never quite out of it. We knew we had to play four quarters and that’s exactly what we did.”
Fossil Ridge now gets a chance at redemption in the state championship game and Johannsen likes where his team is at going into the contest.
“They have a mission and they are really focused,” he said. “Whether or not that will translate into a title, who knows.”
Added Randall: “You always want your last game to be a win that that’s what we’re going to try to do tomorrow. I believe in my guys.”
(4) DENVER EAST 86, (1) MOUNTAIN VISTA 67
Gil Gonzalez got to put the ultimate cherry on top of a huge win for his team.
The Denver East senior threw down a massive dunk in the closing seconds that gave his team another chance to smile during an impressive 21-point victory over top-seeded Mountain Vista in a Class 6A semifinals played in front of an electric atmosphere at Denver Coliseum.
“I hadn’t gotten one all game, so I gave D (D’Audre Samuels) a look and he got it to me,” said Gonzalez, who finished with a game-high 20 points as the Angels used concentrated bursts at multiple times to put away the Golden Eagles.
Veteran coach Rudy Carey’s Denver East team won its 25th consecutive game in style and moved into the 6A state championship game against No. 3 Fossil Ridge in a game slated for 4 p.m. Saturday.
With a combination of high-flying finishes and well-timed 3-point shots, the Angels outscored Mountain Vista 51-33 in the final two quarters to get the program into the state championship game for the first time since 2014, when they also went against Fossil Ridge. That was the last of the 15 state championships that puts Denver East atop the all-time list of winners in Colorado boys basketball history.
“We worked hard, we wore them down and we figured that would happen,” Carey said succinctly. “We stuck to our game plan.”
The Angels did come at Mountain Vista in waves and had five players — all seniors — finish with double figures as Gonzalez poured in 20, D’Aundre Samuels had 16, Austin Mohr 15, Jack Greenwood 12 and Sam Scott 11.
“It feels amazing, we wanted this from the beginning of the season,” Samuels said.
All of the seniors (and others) took their turns with big plays against Mountain Vista (24-3), which also had five players in double figures led by Caden Stevens with 16.
A one-point lead after one half turned into a 10-point edge after three quarters after Gonzalez closed the quarter with a corner 3-pointer and then a baseline layup.
Greenwood hadn’t scored in the first three quarters, but he got scored 12 in the final quarter, starting with a 3-pointer that pushed the lead to 14 points early in the period. The Golden Eagles kept playing hard and got within seven at one point, only to see Gonzalez score and Greenwood knock down another 3-pointer to make it a 16-point game with just three minutes left.
The victory earned Denver East a chance to play one of the two teams that it lost to during an 0-2 start to the season, as they fell 63-40 back on Dec. 2.
“They got us the first time, but now we have a chance for some getback,” Gonzalez said.