EDWARDS — Happy Paonia Week, everyone.
Yes, the Lunar New Year is this week, and Valentine’s Day is around the calendar, but really, it’s Paonia Week.
Vail Christian boys basketball heads to Paonia on Friday night with the No. 1 seed in the upcoming District 5 Tournament on the line.
To refresh everyone involved on the labyrinth of that is qualifying for the postseason in 2A basketball, first, the 2A Western Slope splits up, meaning that 1A DeBeque and North Park go down for the postseason. The sound you just heard was the Saints applauding mightily and wishing the Dragons well in the 1A playoffs. DeBeque should play into March in 1A as it has demonstrated all season against larger foes during the regular season.
This leaves an 11-team 2A field jockeying for seeds for the upcoming District 5 Tournament the week of Feb. 18. Pigtails are on the 18th with the winners advancing to the quarterfinals on Feb. 20. The games of the first two rounds of districts are on the home courts of the higher seeds with the last four standing going to a neutral site Feb. 23-24 — ironically in DeBeque; the Dragons will be elsewhere — to compete for the three spots the district has in regionals.
Vail Christian (11-5 and 8-0 against 2A District 5 opponents) has already clinched a bye through pigtails and will host an opponent to be determined on Feb. 20. Ideally, the Saints would like to be the top seed in the upcoming tournament, and in theory, have the “easiest” path to regionals.
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So beating Paonia is this week’s theme.
The Saints warmed up for the task by throttling Caprock Academy, 60-34, last weekend.
“We really wanted to make it a point to concentrate on defense,” Saints coach Sheldon Kuhns said. “We did that.”
The Saints led 20-3 after the first quarter and 34-11 at the half. That qualifies as defense. Alec Moritz led Vail Christian with 17 points, while E. J. Koller had 14.
While the cliché of “defense wins championships” is apropos as the Saints kick their drive to the postseason into gear, it would also be likely that the subject of Paonia’s 80-67 win over the Saints, during which the Eagles outscored Vail Christian, 52-30, in the second half, has come up in practice this week.
Not to be left out, Vail Christian girls’ basketball bludgeoned Caprock, 66-10.
The cool thing from this one is that Grace McCurdy logged 18 points. Normally McCurdy is doing the thankless tasks of rebounding and battling for loose balls. While those are thankless tasks, they are vital to a team, so it’s nice to see her have some fun.
Zoey Barela also ended up with 18 points, while Sarah Heredia had 13.
Huskies beat Sailors, Part I
EDWARDS — Battle Mountain girls’ basketball is still atop the 4A Western Slope standings after beating Steamboat Springs, 60-39, on Tuesday night.
That moved the Huskies to 12-7 overall and 8-1 in the Slope.
Meanwhile, the Battle Mountain boys (8-10, 4-4) lost a tight one to the Sailors, 53-47.
The Huskies and Sailors were scheduled to do this all over again up north on Wednesday night in the makeup of a snowout last month.
Huskies beat Sailors, Part II
STEAMBOAT SPRINGS — Battle Mountain hockey rang up a 5-2 win at Steamboat Springs on Tuesday, making it a season sweep of the Sailors.
In a theme, this was a makeup of snowout back in January.
Harry Green and Bronson Fiore each scored twice and Parker Nash added another.
The Huskies are 8-4-2 overall and 6-2 in the Peak Conference. Battle Mountain is at Dakota Ridge on Friday.
Devils basketball postponed
GYPSUM — The Glenwood Canyon rockslide postpones Tuesday’s Eagle Valley basketball games with Coal Ridge. No makeup dates have been announced.
Eagle Valley hosts Glenwood Springs tonight at 5:30 and 7 p.m.