The Coal Ridge High School boys basketball team finds itself in position to steal the 3A Western Slope League title this week, but they’ll need a little help to do it.<\/p>\n
First order of business: the Titans, at 6-1 in league and 13-4 overall, have a pair of must-win road games to close out the regular season. <\/p>\n
On Tuesday night, they face a surging Roaring Fork team in Carbondale that’s had a rough season at 5-12 overall but stands at 4-3 in league on the heels of a two-game winning streak \u2014 Friday over Cedaredge, 50-37, and Saturday versus Moffat County, 60-52.<\/p>\n
After that, for the Titans, it’s on to Craig Thursday night against the Moffat County Bulldogs, which is the only league team to beat the current WSL leaders, the 7-1 Gunnison Cowboys \u2014 a 65-61 Moffat win Jan. 17.<\/p>\n
Even with a pair of wins, Coal Ridge would need Delta (4-3, 7-10) to pull off the upset at Gunnison on Thursday for the Titans to retake the title they last won in the 2017-18 season. <\/p>\n
It’s not out of the question. Delta has had a down season after winning the league title last year, but the Panthers did score a 79-75 overtime win at Moffat County on Feb. 7, and played Coal Ridge to within four points on Jan. 24. The Titans prevailed 59-55.<\/p>\n
Gunnison has the upper hand should the Cowboys and Titans conclude with identical league marks, by virtue of a 73-66 win at Coal Ridge on Jan. 18. However, the current state RPI power rankings have Coal Ridge at No. 9 and Gunnison at No. 14.<\/p>\n
Coal Ridge enters the final week of play before the post-season run begins averaging 64.3 points per game and 33.2 rebounds per game. <\/p>\n
Senior Austin Gerber leads the team averaging 18.5 points, with an impressive 49% field goal percentage. He’s also pulling down 4.7 rebounds per game, in complement to junior Hank DiMarco’s 6.1 rebounds per game.<\/p>\n
On the girls side of the league title hunt, Delta is in the driver’s seat at 7-0 (14-3 overall), followed by Cedaredge at 7-1 (15-3). <\/p>\n
That pretty much leaves Roaring Fork at 5-2, Moffat County and Grand Valley at 5-3 each, and Coal Ridge at 4-3 to play their way into the other top-5 seedings going into next week’s District tournament.<\/p>\n