PUEBLO
Most Ignacio High School boys basketball games this season were decided long before the final two minutes.
Not the Bobcats’ 59-50 win over Lutheran in the third-place game of the Colorado High School Activities Association Class 2A Boys Basketball State Championships on Saturday at Massari Arena on the CSU-Pueblo campus.
IHS (25-1) led 51-48 with 1 minute, 34 seconds left and hit 8-of-10 attempts from the free throw line to seal a season-ending victory.
“They iced the game and put it away for us,” said IHS senior Clayton Jefferson, son of Robert and Teena Jefferson. “We preach free throws.”
Jefferson tied for the team lead with six made free throws with Wyatt Hayes and scored 13 points.
Hayes led the team with 22 points and four assists.
They combined with Adison Jones’ 14-point, 10-rebound double-double to score 49 of the Bobcats’ 59 points.
All three put their shooting talents on display early.
The Bobcats scored 21 points in the first quarter after only scoring two in the opening quarter against Sanford in Friday’s semifinal game.
“Against the zone, we had to shoot early, we had to hit some early to get them out of it,” IHS head coach Chris Valdez said. “Otherwise, they would have stuck in (the zone) all game long.”
No. 1 IHS carried a three-point lead through halftime and never let No. 2 Lutheran (19-8) tie the game or take the lead in the second half.
The Lions cut the deficit to three points at the 1:34 mark, but they never were able to even the score.
“When they needed buckets down the stretch, they got them,” Lutheran head coach Ryan Bredow said.
A pair of Lutheran players fouled out in the final 3:26 in a game that featured 38 total fouls.
A trio of Bobcats finished with four fouls, but none of them were disqualified.
Valdez left Jefferson in the game with 3:14 left after he picked up his fourth foul, and he stayed there until exiting with 17.5 seconds left to a hug from his head coach.
All six IHS seniors saw the floor in the final minute, as the Bobcats clinched their best finish at the state tournament since a loss to Lutheran in the 2010 state championship game. They set a school record for wins in a season.
“We wanted to win this game for our seniors,” said Hayes, son of Cindy and Tim Hayes. “They’re important to us, and we wanted to send them out on a good note.”
Despite losing those six seniors to graduation, IHS will return two starters in Hayes, a sophomore, and Jones, a junior, and will keep bench players such as Nicholas Herrera and Anthony Manzanares.
“Off the bat, we’re a top-10 team (next year),” said Valdez, who has qualified the Bobcats for the Great Eight in seven of his 14 seasons as the IHS head coach. “How we develop and build over the summer is going to decide whether we’re a top-five team. We can build on that, hopefully to win it all. That’s always going to be the goal.”
kgrabowski@durangoherald.com
Pagosa Springs’ party ends in the championship game
A dream season ended one game short of a fairy tale for the Pagosa Springs Pirates.
The Pirates took an unblemished 25-0 record into the CHSAA Class 3A Girls Basketball State Championships’ championship game, but that wasn’t enough to intimidate the Holy Family Tigers (26-1), who won the state title game 52-45 on Saturday at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
The Pirates took a 23-15 lead into the locker room at halftime, but Holy Family outscored Pagosa Springs 16-8 in the third quarter to tie the game. That was all the momentum the Tigers needed as they went on to beat the Pirates 21-14 in the final quarter.
Payton Shahan scored 15 points for Pagosa Springs. Taylor Strohecker added another 12 points in the loss.
The Holy Family boys (25-2) also won the Class 3A state championship with a 53-52 victory against Colorado Academy (24-3) to cap off a special day of basketball for the Broomfield school.
heraldsports@durangoherald.com
Class 2A Great Eight
High School Basketball
CHSAA Class 2A Boys Basketball State Championships
Great Eight
March 12-15 at Massari Fieldhouse
Pueblo
Quarterfinals
Thursday, March 13
No. 1 Ignacio 49, No. 8 Sedgwick County 33
No. 3 Akron 81, No. 6 Meeker 64
No. 2 Lutheran 77, No. 7 Holyoke 42
No. 4 Sanford 71, No. 5 Simla 57
Semifinals
Friday, March 14
No. 4 Sanford 47, No. 1 Ignacio 37
No. 3 Akron 64, No. 2 Lutheran 57
Concolation Semifinals
Friday, March 14
No. 7 Holyoke 69, No. 6 Meeker 54
No. 8 Sedgwick County 66, No. 5 Simla 52
Championship
Saturday, March 15
No. 4 Sanford 58, No. 3 Akron 53
Fifth-place Game:
No. 7 Holyoke 47, No. 8 Sedgwick County 26
Third-place Game:
No. 1 Ignacio 59, No. 2 Lutheran 50
Durango Herald
