Valor Christian girls basketball beat Holy Family in the 4A Final 4. More photos. (Matt Mathewes/MVPSportsPics.com)
BOULDER — After a season of battling it out for a league championship, Valor Christian and Evergreen are taking their next game one step further.
But the Eagles (26-1 overall) did the little things right. And in the end, that’s what helped power them to a 63-30 win over Holy Family (20-7). As a result, Valor Christian is going back to the Class 4A girls basketball state championship game.
They won the state title last year, beating Sand Creek 73-47. Sand Creek fell to Evergreen earlier Thursday night, setting up a title game that will see two Jeffco League teams battle it out for the championship.
“How great is that,” Valor coach Jessika Caldwell said. “I will take having two Jeffco coaches in the final and also two female coaches in the final. I think that’s pretty great.”
Caldwell knows her opposing coach well. She and Evergreen coach Amy Bahl played club basketball together and have been friends since their high school days.
And if the Eagles are as scrappy Saturday as they were in the semifinals, it should make for an exciting game.
Going into halftime, the Eagles led the Tigers 28-16, but were shooting just 36 percent from the field. Where they made up their ground was by hustling to lose balls and getting second-chance points to build a double-digit.
“Coming into CU, it’s a totally different arena,” Eagles guard Madison McCoy said. “The lighting is different, everything is different about the court and we just knew that if our shots weren’t falling that we had to get it inside.”
In the closing seconds of the second quarter, a Kim Childress shot attempt fell short and McCoy was there for the put back as time expired.
And from that point on, the momentum was in Valor’s hands.
“The lead that we came in with, we just kind of put aside and set it back to 0-0 going into the second half,” Heidi Hammond said. “We knew that we had to fight hard because they were going to give us everything they had.”
Hammond led all scorers with 19 points on the night with 17 of them coming in the second half.
The Eagles must now turn their attention to a team they are very familiar with in Evergreen. The Cougars couldn’t find a way to beat Valor in the regular season, but in a state championship situation, the Eagles know that they can’t take their league rival lightly.
“I love that they get the opportunity to be out here and we get the opportunity to be out here,” McCoy said. “It just kind of shows that we had a hard league and we always wanted to come back here so we had to keep fighting.”
When the teams tip on Saturday, the Eagles will not only have an advantage in having beaten the Cougars twice, but also playing on such a large stage. While Valor Christian will be playing in the state final for the second time, Evergreen will be making its first appearance in a state championship game.
“The best part is to come out and beat them again,” Hammond said. “They’ve studied us well, they played twice to two really close games. They know just about everything that we do, but we also know what they do. It’s going to come down to who has the most heart.”