Senior Raegan Beers summed up Valor Christian’s frustrations after a 52-40 loss to Grandview in the Class 5A championship girls basketball game on March 12 at the Denver Coliseum.
“We couldn’t hit the broad side of the barn,” she said after the Eagles finished the season with a 23-4 record but failed to win their second straight state title.
Valor shot 20% of its field goal attempts in the first half as Grandview raced to a 26-15 lead. The Eagles shooting improved a little, especially in the final two minutes of the game, but a 32% shooting figure for the game isn’t a winning statistic.
“Oh yeah it was frustrating not hitting your shots,” added Beers. “My shots were not falling, and our guards’ shots weren’t falling. We couldn’t do anything about that, but we tried to keep playing defense and did that well.”
Valor played good defense for most of the game, but Grandview still shot 55.6% in the first half and 45.9% for the game.
“Sadly, we didn’t shoot the way we needed to,” said Valor Coach Jessika Caldwell. “We did some good things defensively but, in the end, too many offensive boards and not capitalizing on our stops on defense on the offensive end hurt us. I’m proud of our girls for fighting and enduring a challenging season of so many road games (because of a flooded gym early in the season).”
Grandview outrebounded the Eagles, 33-24, and had a 43.4% offensive rebounding percentage. The Wolves had a 24-4 advantage in points in the paint.
One of the featured matchups in the game was between McDonald’s All-Americans with Grandview’s 6-foot-7 Stanford commit Lauren Betts going against Beers, the 6-foot-3 center who will be going to Oregon State.
Betts had 13 points and 10 rebounds while Beers finished with 14 points and nine rebounds, making only six of 18 field goal attempts.
Macey Huard was Valor’s other double figure scorer in the title game with 10 points.
Leading up to the championship game, the 5A semi-final games were played on March 10 at the Coliseum.
Valor Christian got past Arapahoe, 65-49, and Grandview ousted Highlands Ranch, 65-51.
Beers had 28 points, 14 rebounds, three blocked shots and three assists to spark the Eagles who also got points from Huard (13), freshman Quinn Van Sickle (12) and Mariah Hilliard (11).
Sydney White was the top scorer for Arapahoe (18-8) with 15 points and Sam Crispe added 13.
Highlands Ranch ended with a 21-5 record and was led by Emily Williamson with 21 points. Betts had 22 points for Grandview.