FREDERICK – After a sluggish first half in which the Frederick High School boys basketball team made one basket in 13 tries from 3-point range, the advice from Frederick boys basketball coach Jeff Conway was simple.
“Moving the ball and trusting our teammates, truly,” senior Luke Justice said. “We weren’t hitting. Our coaches? They were saying, ‘Keep passing the ball, trusting our teammates.’” They started falling in the second half.”
In the second half, the Golden Eagles made six of the long-range baskets, beat Harrison 84-67 and advanced to the elite 8 of the state 5A boys basketball tournament.
“Shots started falling,” Conway said. “We saw a few go in, and then it was contagious. That was the difference. We knew that we weren’t going to continue that way. The law of averages over the season? We did that in the past. That’s what we do.”
Harry Singh tossed in 12 points for the Golden Eagles. JJ Strojnic added 11, and Jacob Lovins scored eight. The Panthers’ top scorer was Kenny Jones Jr. with 14 points. Jeilo Hamenyimana added 12. And Jamison Taylor chipped in with 11.
“We moved the ball up and down the court,” said center Matias Aldana. “We came into the locker room and knew our shots weren’t falling. In the second half, they started falling. The coach said to keep working hard and to keep shooting.”
The Panthers scored 10 of the game’s first 12 points. After that, the contest was played within a seven-point window. Justice topped the scoring sheet with 32 points. He made three of the 3-pointers, including two straight at the end of the third quarter. One, which came as time ran out, left Justice on his team’s bench and helped propel the Golden Eagles to a nine-point lead early in the fourth quarter.
“I just turned and saw the hoop,” he said. “I knew I didn’t have much time. I threw it up there. I’d be wrong if I said I practiced that shot. I felt like I was in the bench. Someone was in my ear saying, ‘It’s in.’ Then I was like, ‘Oh my gosh.’ I got shoved all the way out to the stands.”
Singh said the Golden Eagles knew how to tire out the Panthers.
“We knew it would be close in the beginning, so we had to push on ‘em and push on ‘em,” he said. “he first half, we were missing so many easy looks. We just made our shots. The coach said, ‘Trust yourself. The shots were going to fall. You can’t be scared.”
“We tried to run up and down the court and focus on our defense,” Lovins said. “We are one of the top-scoring teams in the state. We knew Harrison was going to be tired coming out in the second half. We had to push them.”
FHS faces Mead in the Denver Coliseum at 8:30 p.m. Thursday, March 2. Tip FHS beat the Mavericks earlier this season and beat Mead in the playoffs last year to advance to the 4A semifinals.
“We know we can beat them,” Singh said. “We just have to play our best defense.”
‘We know what each other does, so it’s going to be one of those games,” Conway said. “Two rivals going at it.”
