Basketball roundup

Local teams hit wall in drive for playo s

BY JIM BENTON SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA

e Cherry Creek and Arapahoe girls basketball teams both lost close semi nal games in the Class 6A state basketball tournament on March 10 at the Denver Coliseum.

Mountain Vista’s top-seeded boys teams also lost a Final Four game but it wasn’t close in the second half.

Grandview sank four free throws in the closing seconds to defeat second-seeded Cherry Creek 31-28 in a game between Centennial League rivals.

Arapahoe was forced to make a tough decision with 2.8 seconds remaining before dropping a 5350 decision to Monarch.

Mountain Vista trailed Denver East by only one point at halftime but a big third-quarter surge propelled the Angels to outscore the Golden Eagles 51-33 in the second half en route to a 86-67 victory.

Cherry Creek (22-5) was down by eight points in the third quarter but rallied to grab a 28-27 lead with 1:37 remaining in the game. at’s when Isa Dillehay and Sienna Betts each made two free throws to provide the winning margin as Creek’s poor shooting continued in the second half of the turnover- lled contest.

Creek went 6:49 without scoring in the third quarter and shot only 15.8% in the second half and 20.9 percent for the game.

Still, the Bruins had a chance and were behind by a point with 12 seconds to play when Addison Beck missed a three-point shot.

“I’m disappointed for the kids,” said Creek coach Clint Evans. “ ey battled so hard defensively to try to limit Sienna but we couldn’t score. We had our best shooter with a wide-open three-pointer to take the lead and sometimes the ball just doesn’t go in. I wanted Addy to shoot that shot.”

Betts, the 6-foot-4 sophomore who is the Colorado Gatorade Player of the Year, had 16 points and 15 rebounds. Tianna Chambers led Creek with 10 points

Arapahoe (20-7) faced an almost no-win situation in its game against Monarch when the team trailed 51-47 with 12.1 seconds left in the game.

Arapahoe senior Sydney White was fouled shooting a three-pointer with 2.8 seconds on the clock. She sank the rst two free throws to pull within two points and the Warriors had to decide whether to intensionally miss the third free throw and try for a rebound.

Smith made the third free throw as Arapahoe closed to within a point and then Monarch’s

Hayley Luther was fouled on the inbounds pass and she made both free throws to account for the three-point margin.

“We discussed that (missing the last free throw) in our timeout,” said Warriors’ coach Jerry Knafelc. “We tried to deny the ball inbounds and we were close to getting a ve-second call and then we would of got the ball back but we didn’t.”

Gianna Smith was the top scorer for Arapahoe with 19 points. White had 16 points and Emerson Stark 10 but the Warriors were outrebonded, 4325, and Knafelc noted that was the di erence in the game.

Mountain Vista (24-3) couldn’t nd a way to slow down Denver East in the second half.

“ ey are the type of team you have to give up something,” said Vista coach Brian Wood. “We were giving threes to some of their guys we would have not rather had shooting but they just kept making them. And it seemed like when they missed them, they went and got the ball.

“It’s hard to win when you give up 86 points. I’m really proud of this team and it is just hard when it ends so abruptly.”

• Denver East nished with ve players scoring in double gures.

• Caden Stevens had 17 points for Vista to which also had ve players in double gures. Brendan Diehl and Celeb Baskind each had 12 points while Radek Homer and Zach Brown contributed 11 points.