Grand Valley girls to play for 3A District championship on Saturday afternoon

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Grand Valley’s Lady Cardinals found a way to crack a tough Cedaredge press Friday, winning 39-29 to advance to the girls championship game of the 3A Western Slope District tournament.

Playing at Grand Junction Central High School for the semifinal and final rounds, the No. 3 Cardinals found themselves on the wrong end of a 7-0 first quarter, before mounting 13-6 and 16-6 runs in the second and third periods to gain the upper hand on the No. 2 Bruins.

Much of that comeback was at the hot hand of Kristen Medina, who was out sick for the past two practices, according to Grand Valley coach Isaac Pittman

Medina, who had 16 points on the night to lead all scorers, had back-to-back 3s with time expiring in the third to give Grand Valley a 6-point lead. The Cardinals never looked back from there.

“Cedaredge is a great defensive team, so we started off a little slow but made some adjustments in the second quarter to come back and tie it at the half,” Pittman said.

“The girls played incredible defense tonight, and dealt much better with their full court pressure this game. That was the big difference from last game,” he said, referencing a 51-36 regular-season loss to the Bruins on Feb. 15.

Grand Valley (16-5) meets No. 1 Delta (18-3) in Saturday afternoon’s championship game at 1 p.m. The Panthers were 71-24 winners over No. 4 Roaring Fork in the other semifinal.

Roaring Fork (13-8) and Cedaredge (17-4) meet in the morning third-place game.

In the other girls semifinal, the top seed jumped all over Roaring Fork, building an insurmountable 41-13 lead at halftime en route to the win.

BOYS: Aspen 35, Roaring Fork 32

Down 33-30 with a minute to play, No. 6 Roaring Fork senior Frankie Harrington hit a bucket to pull the Rams to within one point.

But No. 7 Aspen, which held the slim lead all game long but for the Rams’ opening 3-pointer, scored the final basket to keep the edge.

A low-scoring first half saw Aspen grab the 12-9 lead. The Rams hung within five points of the Skiers most of the game, but couldn’t quite take charge.

Rams junior Graham Pietch led the team with 13 points and Jaime Vega added eight. Freshman Taylor Akin led the Skiers with 15 points.

Roaring Fork (6-15) will play Delta (9-12) for third place on Saturday, while Aspen (14-8) plays top-seeded Gunnison (19-2) for the boys District championship. Gunnison won the other semifinal game Friday 60-53 over Delta.

via:: Post Independent