The 5A Centennial League has a long standing tradition of great conference battles in boys basketball. If Wednesday night’s Eaglecrest at Grandview rivalry game was any indication, that tradition should continue during the 2013-14 season.
Two games removed from a 55-54 loss to No. 1 Denver East right before the break when senior guard Jaisean Jackson missed a potential game-winning shot, this time Eaglecrest’s Jackson made an 18-foot buzzer-beating jumper to edge Grandview 55-53.
The defending state champion Raptors, ranked No. 6 in the current CHSAANow poll, were down 14-7 at the end of the first quarter and 26-14 at halftime due to No. 8 Grandview’s solid defense and the Raptors’ inability to make shots or free-throws. Eaglecrest only made six field goals and went 2-8 from the charity stripe in the first half.
Grandview’s senior guard KyRon Allen hit two big three-pointers and had eight points, all in the first quarter, and fellow senior guard Armani Stevenson chipped in six by halftime. The first half was marred by several turnovers by both teams and some likely jitters in a rivalry game.
“We can’t play any worse in the first half and I think we just needed to settle down,” Eaglecrest coach John Olander said. “First league game, big crowd, great team that we were playing against and we just needed to play aggressive. We weren’t really playing that aggressive in the first half. (We were) settling for too many quick shots.”
The third quarter began with more cold shooting by the Raptors and they quickly went down 40-19 after a 14-5 run by Grandview. Allen tallied six of the points during the run.
(Brock Laue)
Eaglecrest then started to utilize the speed and defensive tenacity of Elijah Ross, LaDerian King and Jackson — a trio of athletic guards — to wreak havoc on the Wolves’ offense and get some easy transition buckets late in the third quarter.The Raptors also buried some big three-pointers and suddenly found themselves down only 40-32 going into the fourth.
6-foot-5 forward Blend Avdili had six points and several important rebounds in the quarter, and King had seven points.
The Raptors finally got hot on offense and had the ball with the game tied at 53 and 6.4 seconds on the clock. Out of a timeout, they put the ball in the hands of Jackson, a senior who started on last year’s state title team.
“I looked at the clock and it looked like less than a second,” Jackson said. “I put it up, follow through and everything, and it was bottom of the net.”
Eaglecrest outscored Grandview 23-12 in the final quarter to seal the win in a hostile environment and start conference play 1-0.
“It’s the first one in the league. This rivalry is a great rivalry, probably one of the best in the state,” Olander said. “To be able to come in here, I’m just really proud of my guys — every single one of them — to be able to come back from down twenty in the second half and they never quit.
“But you have to give Grandview credit. It’s hard to play with the lead, you’re trying to protect the lead. We were really aggressive and I think we were lucky to get out of here with one but we’ll take it.”
Jackson, despite a shot he will surely not forget, stood by the old one-game-at-a time approach.
“Just keep playing defense. Defense kept us in this game,” Jackson said. “They hit good shots, but we just had to keep playing defense and keep playing and keep playing and sooner or later we knew that they would get tired, turn the ball over.
“It’s just another ‘W,’ we have way more big games to go. This is just the beginning of winning league.”
Ross led the Raptors in scoring with 15 points, seven of which came in the final quarter. Avdili chipped in nine points and Jackson and King each had seven.
Allen had a team high 14 points and Keanu Flores, a sharpshooter, had 10 — including three 3-pointers — for the Wolves.
Eaglecrest moved to 8-2 this season and 1-0 in arguably this year’s premier 5A boys basketball league, the Centennial. The Raptors will return to action against another tough opponent Friday night at 7 p.m. with a home contest against No. 10 Cherry Creek, a team that is also 1-0 in conference following a 58-45 win over No. 7 Arapahoe on Wednesday.
Grandview will have a home game against a solid Mullen Mustangs squad on Friday at 7 p.m.
The Centennial League currently has five teams ranked in the top-10 by CHSAANow and will certainly provide a bevy of competitive games all season long.
(Brock Laue)