6A Boys Basketball: Valor Christian Wins First State Title Since 2017

DENVER – It has been a short while since the Valor Christian boys basketball team won a state title, but there was little doubt the Eagles would get back on top before too long.

At the Denver Coliseum on Saturday night, the Valor Christian boys returned to the top of the mountain. The Eagles pulled away late to win 52-40 over Mountain Vista and claim their first state championship since 2017. It’s their first in the new 6A classification, which is in its second year.

“We held up the standards we have for our basketball program and we have an incredible group of guys that allowed us to coach them and do whatever that took,” Eagles head coach Jeff Platt said. “They’ve responded all year long with resilience, no matter what the circumstances.”

Against a fourth-seeded ThunderRidge team that had won two state titles in the previous three years, No. 6 Valor Christian trailed by five after the first quarter but fought their way back into the game and cut the ThunderRidge lead to just two at halftime. The Eagles outscored ThunderRidge, 17-10 while shooting 60 percent from the field, in the third quarter and hit free-throws down the home stretch of the fourth to pull away in the final minutes.

As expected, the Eagles got a huge performance from Cole Scherer. Following a monster game against Smoky Hill in the Final Four the day before, the junior guard went 9-14 from the field and made three of six 3-point attempts to lead all scorers with 28 points. He averaged 21.7 points a game this season.

“Like I say all the time, the best player has to be at his best when his best is needed and that epitomizes what Cole has done throughout the entire state tournament,” Platt said. “And he hasn’t just done it scoring the ball. He’s done it controlling the game, he’s done it with his rebounding, he’s done it with his effort and he’s been the catalyst for our entire team. And we’ve had a lot of other guys step up and feed off that energy from Cole.

“Our seniors played like seniors the entire state tournament. I don’t want to underestimate that Cole’s been incredible. I think he’s had by far the greatest season of anyone in the state of Colorado from start to finish. But, our entire cast has contributed night in and night out.”

Also for Valor Christian, Ryan Dixon scored nine points, Brady Wynja had eight and Eli Kim finished with seven.

For ThunderRidge, Charlie Spann (19.3 ppg) led the team with 18 points. Andrew Crawford scored 10 points and Tommy Wight added six.

ThunderRidge won by two over No. 8 Eaglecrest in the Final Four on Friday to reach the championship game. On the other side of the bracket Valor Christian won by 11 over No. 7 Smoky Hill.