The Class 5A girls basketball semifinals took place Thursday night at the Denver Coliseum. Roosevelt and Windsor won their respective games and advanced to the state championship game. They’ll match up Saturday for the second time this season.
(2) Roosevelt 59, (3) Durango 39
As a program, the Roosevelt girls basketball team has been patient long enough.
The Rough Riders have waited exactly 20 years to again play in a girls hoops title game.
They’ve waited even longer — the entire lifespan of the program — to win a girls basketball state championship.
So, naturally, when they stepped on the court Thursday night with a state finals berth on the line, Roosevelt refused to wait any longer.
The second-seeded Rough Riders were urgent but in full control — hurried but not rushed — as they sprinted past No. 3 Durango with frenetic pace, defeating the overmatched Demons 59-39 in the state tournament’s semifinals at the Denver Coliseum.
“The faster, the better,” said Roosevelt’s 5-foot-10 junior guard Madison Moyers, who scored a game-high 17 points.
“We have post players that can run and are super athletic. They can get out and go. It’s really nice to just be able to chuck it up and get 15 (fastbreak) points per game.”
With the win, Roosevelt improved to 25-2 heading into a title game against fellow northern Colorado powerhouse, fourth-seeded Windsor (20-7), a 5:45 p.m. Saturday at the Denver Coliseum.
“They’ve just worked their butts off, and all season they’ve been great,” first-year Rough Riders coach Enoch Miller said. “The thing I’m so proud of is we have a young team. But they’ve grown as the season has gone on. … They’ve grown up. They’ve embraced unselfishness. They have learned, as the season has gone on how to put the team above the individual.”
(4) Windsor 65, (8) Glenwood Springs 35
Every little thing the Windsor girls basketball team did Thursday night was done with clear intention.
That should come as no surprise.
The Wizards' intentions are crystal clear.
They are bound and determined to not just advance to their third title game in as many years. They are dead set on winning their second girls hoops title in program history, which would be their first state championship since 1994.
They checked off the first half of that two-tier task by dominating eighth-seeded Glenwood Springs 65-35 in the Class 5A state tournament semifinals Thursday at the Denver Coliseum.
Now they'll focus on the second tier of that task when they face No. 2 Roosevelt (25-2) in the title game at 5:45 p.m. Saturday back at the Denver Coliseum.
"I think with it being this late in the season, we just kind of know what to expect from all our players," said Windsor senior guard Raegan Johnson, who shared a team-high of 10 points with sophomore Brooklyn Jiricek.
"There is telepathy, almost, between us. We know where we're going to be at which times."
It's obvious where Johnson and her teammates will be Saturday night — playing for their first girls hoops title in nearly 20 years.
They sent Glenwood Springs packing with a 19-8 record.