(Brock Laue)
FORT COLLINS — It was the type of back-and-forth affair typical in these later-round tournament games. The type of game Fossil Ridge coach Matt Johannsen thinks his guys don’t get enough credit for being able to win.
“We haven’t gotten a lot of credit this year for having hard-nosed kids and kids that aren’t going to give up. They had us down several times,” Johannsen said after a 60-53 survival of No. 5-seeded Legend in the Class 5A Sweet 16 Wednesday night.
Fossil, the No. 1 seed in the Chauncey Billups Region, moved to 25-0 this season.
(Brock Laue)
“I’ll tell anyone that I think Kevin is one of the top one or two coaches in the state,” Johannsen added about Kevin Boley, the coach at Legend. “When we opened Fossil Ridge ten years ago and he was at Broomfield, I said this is what we want to pattern our program after. Playing him sucks, because one of us is going to go home and he’s a good friend of mine, but it didn’t surprise me that they played that well.”
Said Fossil’s senior point guard Evan Smith: “Legend is very underrated. I think they should’ve gotten a higher seed than they did. They’re a tough team and played in a tough conference.”
In a game with several ties and lead changes, Fossil Ridge took early command with smothering defense and a power outage offensively for Legend. The Titans didn’t score until 1:45 remaining in the first, and the SaberCats held an 11-4 lead after one.
Legend’s 6-foot-4 athletic wing, Elijah Cherrington, decided to put on the superman cape in the second and drained five 3-pointers, scoring 17 of the Titans’ 22 points to give Legend a 26-24 halftime lead. Cherrington was unconscious and went 5-of-5 from downtown in the quarter. He ignited a fantastic game.
“We knew Elijah could shoot a little bit,” Johannsen said about Cherrington, “but he’s only shooting 27 percent (from 3) on the year and then he comes out with a little bit of confidence after he hit his first two and it really snowballed from there. Give him credit. He did a great job shooting the ball. He got shots, we had guys running at him, man he’s a player.”
But, Johannsen added of his team trailing in stretches — a rarity this season, “They didn’t hang their heads and I guess that’s the biggest thing that I really appreciated about them.”
Legend opened with a 30-25 lead in the third, Fossil’s largest deficit of the game, but the SaberCats quickly roared back on the play of Evan Smith, Ryan Quaid, Brandon Bodnar and Matt Laine.
Legend’s talented sophomore point guard, Riley Matticks, cashed a 3-point runner to tie the game at 40 headed into the final quarter.
Monroe Porter, another of Legend’s sophomore studs, was keyed on by Fossil’s defensive gameplan throughout.
“We wanted to limit Porter’s looks. We knew he was a good shooter,” Johannsen said.
Porter was snuffed out offensively until he pulled up for a deep, contested trey with 56 seconds left. The shot brought Legend within one, 54-53.
(Brock Laue)
Fossil, displaying its hard-nosed toughness and refusal to lose, answered at the other end with a pair of Sawyer Novak free-throws.
Legend’s Riley Matticks drove hard to the basket the next play looking for an easy two, but was rejected by Smith, a surprisingly bouncy six-foot point guard who played with amazing fire throughout.
Legend inbounded to a wide open Zach Mihalicz down low but Mihalicz, who had some nice moments in the game, missed the layup and Fossil closed out the victory.
Evan Smith had 12 points, all of them critical for the SaberCats. He added six rebounds, three assists and two steals, and seemed to make a play every time Fossil needed one. The senior is an ultra-competitive player with a high basketball intelligence.
“Evan’s a stud,” Johannsen said. “You see three years of being a varsity starter and just understanding what we need to do. He understands being patient, he can go to the basket, he can shoot, he’s a good defender. He’s got long arms, he causes a lot of problems on defense. He’s our floor general. He makes us go.”
Fossil showed their tremendous resiliency, confidence, and depth late in the game with the amount of big plays made by several different players.
“We really believe in ourselves,” Smith said. “We knew we could come back and get it. We never felt out of it at any time.”
Cherrington finished 8-of-10 from 3 and had 23 points for Legend. Matticks chipped in eight, but Cherrington didn’t get quite enough help offensively to lead the Titans to an upset. Legend concludes its season 17-9.
Sawyer Novak led Fossil Ridge with 13 points, Bodnar had nine points and Laine scored eight. Bodnar had back-to-back crucial baskets in the fourth quarter to keep the pressure high on Legend in the tough road environment.
Fossil Ridge will face consistent power Arapahoe (20-5), the No. 3 seed in the region, at the Denver Coliseum in the program’s second Great 8 in history on Friday.
Johannsen has reiterated this season the team’s single-minded focus on how they perform and not how others view them.
“People complain about our schedule,” Johannsen said. “It doesn’t matter. We’ve got kids that are going to play hard and we buy into. We’re going to play hard and let the chips fall where they may.”