(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
COLORADO SPRINGS — Doherty is used to running the floor, getting its looks from the beyond the arc and scoring a lot of points. But that didn’t happen for them on Thursday.
They faced a formidable triangle-and-two defense, but were able to get enough from Brevin Brimble and Kayden Washington to come away with a 50-44 win over Pine Creek.
“They did a lot better job than last time,” Brimble said. “They took both our best shooters out of the game. They took the perimeter away and we had to force it into the bigs.”
Brimble scored a game-high 18 points, which isn’t uncommon for the senior. But he only knocked down three 3-pointers. Those were the only triples the Class 5A CHSAANow.com No. 7-ranked Spartans (15-3 overall, 9-0 Colorado Springs Metro League) hit all night.
So the only other option, as Brimble mentioned, was taking the game to the paint. Washington added 12 in the effort and was vital to Doherty being able to maintain a lead for the majority of the night.
“Kayden’s a finisher, that’s what he does,” Spartans coach Jarris Krapcha said. “He finishes at the rim, he cleans up some missed shots, he catches dump off passes from the guards and I’m glad he stepped up and was able to get 12 points tonight.”
And if the Eagles (9-9, 3-5) were going to lose, that’s how they were going down. Their goal wasn’t really to slow Doherty down, it was to take away the outside shots and force them to take their game inside.
For the most part, they were able to do that with their triangle-and-two.
“If they were going to beat us, we wanted them to have to do it in the lane,” Pine Creek coach Joe Rausch said. “That’s crazy for as small as we are, but when they’re hitting threes, they’re impossible to stop.”
The Eagles turned out to be much better from long range. Quentin Gutierrez and Dawson Thomas combined to sink eight 3-pointers. Gutierrez led Pine Creek with 17 points and Thomas was nearly even with him, scoring 16.
Thomas cut the Doherty lead to 37-35 by knocking down one of his triples at the end of the third quarter. The Eagles tied the game up on a Grant Wilkinson basket, but he missed the ensuing free throw that would’ve given the Eagles the lead.
The Spartans responded with a 5-0 run, but just couldn’t put themselves in a position to take control of the game.
(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
“It was really annoying,” Washington said. “It made me kind of angry. We’d go and do something really well and they would hit a big shot like Dawson at the end of the third quarter. We just had to push through and know that if we kept playing and stayed level, we’d be able to take the win.”
And a win is win. Even if on the rare occasion that the Spartans are taken out of their kind of game, Krapcha has shown that his boys are capable of grinding out those victories when they need to.
His record shows that he’s able to adjust on the fly and make any game plan work for them this year.
“I hope it helps,” he said. “It’s obviously not the first time they’ve seen triangle-and-two, I think it’s the sixth or seventh. I thought we had gotten better at it, but tonight we couldn’t knock down any outside shots and that hurt.”
But a win cures all injuries.
The Spartans will have a chance to wrap-up the CSML title in a week when they travel to Rampart. They beat the Rams 89-87 in overtime back on Jan. 17.