(Josh Watt/CHSAANow.com)
COLORADO SPRINGS — The Lewis-Palmer Rangers are as good as advertised. In fact, they might be better than advertised. The current Class 4A No. 4 ranked Rangers made a deafening statement with a 93-54 win over league rival Sand Creek.
The Scorpions sit at No. 6 in the CHSAANow.com poll.
Both rankings could see changes next week, but one thing is for certain: after falling short in the Final 4 last year, the Rangers (6-1 overall, 1-0 4A Pikes Peak Athletic Conference) look prime for a run at the 4A title in March.
“The one thing I know we were ready to do was compete,” Rangers coach Bill Benton said. “The guys have been itching to get back out on the floor, they’ve been itching to compete. We do it every day in practice, but I know we wanted to come out and I thought we were really well-balanced tonight.”
To say the Rangers were well-balanced is no understatement, especially considering they put up 93 points on offense. For the first eight minutes of the game, it looked like the Scorpions (5-4, 0-1) were going to give Lewis-Palmer all they could handle. Led by junior D’Shawn Schwartz, who scored eight of his 18 points in the first quarter, Sand Creek only trailed 17-15.
But Schwartz was held to only three field goals for the remainder of the game, and although Jordan Phillips scored all 20 of his point in the final three quarters of the game, the Scorpions were rendered ineffective on the offensive end of the floor.
“We showed exactly how we could play if we hit shots in the first quarter,” Sand Creek coach Mark Bowers said. “We can play with anybody, but when we’re going to be a lazy and not play hard and not play defense the right way, we’re going to get beat by 40.”
It didn’t help that everything seemed to be going right for the Rangers. Jonathan Scott, who was tasked with slowing down Schwartz, wasn’t concerned about scoring. So the Rangers were getting points from whomever had open shots. In the first quarter, it was Joe DeCoud. The senior forward ended with 16 points on the night, 12 of them coming from behind the 3-point line.
“It’s helps a lot and when we play as a team, that’s what happens” Scott said. “All of us together; not one player is more important than another. It really helps.”
It was only a matter of time before scoring opportunities opened up for Scott. He connected with a layup at the end of the first half to give the Rangers a 40-28 lead and things just snowballed from there. Scott finished with a game-high 24 points, even though his primary task was to shut down Schwartz.
“My job was not to score at all this game,” Scott said. “All I was told to do was to guard D’Shawn. He’s their big player. If you stop him, you kind of stop the whole team.”
Charlie Hovasse and Sam Strasburger also scored in double figures for Lewis-Palmer and Benton was able to pull his starters for the majority of the fourth quarter.
With the first league win under their belt, the Rangers travel to Vista Ridge Friday to try and make it two in a row.
The Scorpions will look for their first league win Friday night as they head to Air Academy to face the defending 4A champs. In order to do that, Bowers needs his players to believe in the systems that the team is trying to run.
“They don’t have any faith or any belief in what we do,” Bowers said. “Until they trust that it’s going to work for them, it’s going to be a struggle the rest of the season.”