Dakota Ridge boys hoops lockdown defensively at Green Mountain

LAKEWOOD — Dakota Ridge’s student section broke out in chats of ‘MVP, MVP …’ on Monday night at Green Mountain High School.

While the Eagles do have last year’s Class 5A/4A Jeffco League MVP in senior Ethan Berninger, it was Nathan Esau who was defintely the Eagles’ MVP in the huge conference game. Esau scored a game-high 29 points as Dakota Ridge took a 56-46 road victory against Green Mountain.

“He is just a natural scorer,” Dakota Ridge coach Sean Kovar said of Esau pouring in his career-high. “He is so smooth. He is long, his handles are great and his shot is great. He is someone we trust every time he shoots it.”

 

At times in the first half, it seemed like Esau was the only player on either team that could string together field goals. The senior point guard made six of Dakota Ridge’s nine field goals on the way to 14 points in the first half.

“I felt a big game coming,” Esau said. “As a team we took care of the ball really well. We didn’t turn it over. We tried to be the more fundamental team tonight.”

Green Mountain (9-9, 2-2 in 5A/4A Jeffco) came in having won five of its last six games, but the Rams struggled offensively.

“That’s their (Dakota Ridge’s) D. They defended the hell out of us,” Green Mountain coach Mike Puccio said after the Rams who shot 18-for-50 (36 percent) from the field. 

Senior Simon Lunsford was coming off his career-high — 41 points — two days before in a 76-65 home victory over Evergreen. However, Lunsford was held to just 7 points against the Eagles.

Kovar said he wanted to put constant defensive pressure on Lunsford and throw multiple defenders on the senior.

“Tonight I felt like our defense carried us the whole way,” Kovar said. 

Junior Ben Swanson (12 points) and sophomore Sam Mielenz (10 points) led the way for the Rams. Green Mountain had its shot in the second half to make a run when Berninger picked up his fourth foul with 6:03 left in the third quarter.

Even with last year’s league MVP on the bench, Dakota Ridge was able to extend its lead to 36-25 heading to the fourth quarter.

“It is fun to have a team full of seniors,” Kovar said. “There is leadership there. There is poise there and they trust each other.”

Monday’s game was actually originally scheduled for Jan. 22, the league opener for both teams. However, a power outage at Green Mountain High School that day postponed the game and was rescheduled to Feb. 3. 

(Dakota Ridge) is special. They can make a (playoff) run and represent this league well. They are primed to go,” Puccio said “We are still working on us. The season is far from over. We want to be playing our best ball in the next two weeks. We’ll get them there.”

Green Mountain is at Littleton (Wednesday) before returning home to face area-rival D’Evelyn on Friday, Feb. 7.

Dakota Ridge stays on the road with two more conference games this week. The Eagles are at Pomona (Wednesday) and Evergreen (Friday). 

“I’m thinking about the bus at 5 p.m. Wednesday up to Pomona, to be honest,” Kovar said when asked about Dakota Ridge’s 1-game lead in the conference standings with five league games remaining. “We just control what we can control. We’ll get ready for Pomona tomorrow.”

Esau did acknowledge that Friday’s conference game at Evergreen (13-4, 3-1) will be a big test on Dakota Ridge’s quest to win a third straight league title.

“This was huge,” Esau said of the win to take a 2-game lead over Green Mountain in the conference standings. “Evergreen is going to be tough at their place too. I was talking to a kid up there and they packed the house up there (Jan. 24 vs. Golden). It’s going to be fun.”