The Lone Tree Lions celebrated Senior Night on Tuesday with a split doubleheader against the Hillcrest Academy Ravens, with the Lion girls coming out on top 52-38 and the Raven boys turning in a 85-61 victory.
The Lone Tree girls found themselves in a dogfight with the Ravens, who have been playing well over the past few weeks after a lot of struggles to begin the season. Both teams traded buckets back and forth and were tied at the half, 22-22. Lone Tree, who had at times played a little bit of catch up, finally turned a corner in the third quarter, heading into the final quarter with a 34-32 lead. However, the Lions didn’t truly pull away until the final few minutes of the game, ultimately going 18-6 in the fourth quarter to take the 13-point win.
Finley Jacque led the scoring with 19, while Abby Zaruba added 13, primarily off of offensive rebounds. Hillcrest’s Claire Withrow continued a solid streak of games, adding 15 to lead the Ravens.
Lone Tree head coach Ryan Shelman says that it took awhile for the team to really get going, but things improved over time. “Once we settled into the game, I thought we did a good job, especially defensively, kind of limiting some of their shot attempts and things that we were talking about at the beginning of the game that we weren’t necessarily doing well in the first quarter.”
Lone Tree improves to 14-6 on the season, 12-4 in the SEISC-North, while Hillcrest falls to 6-14, 3-13 in conference. The Lions finish the conference season in second place, while the Ravens finish in eighth.
The boys game saw a fired up Lone Tree squad take it right to the SEISC-North leaders, with the Ravens uncharacteristically sloppy and committing several turnovers. Although the Ravens led 20-16 after the first, and held a small lead most of the way through the second, it seemed as if the underdogs had Hillcrest figured out. Unfortunately for the Lions, momentum seemed to change in a heartbeat, with Hillcrest pulling off a double-digit swing in what seemed to be just a couple of minutes, turning what was a close game into a 44-29 halftime score. The Ravens continued to put on the jets in the second half, eventually surpassing their season high in what ended up a 24-point win.
Rowan Miller picked up 32 points and led all scorers. Gibson Scott and Kale Bailey also added an incredible 20 points each. A trio of seniors scored double-digits for Lone Tree, including Reece Holbrook’s 18, Gray Spillman’s 13, and Domonic Garcia’s 12.
Hillcrest head coach Stephen Bender credits the defensive play and the play in transition for the game-deciding run in the first half. “The guys kind of anticipated, and got some steals, jumped in the passing lanes, and we were able to put those into buckets and when you get some easy transition points, it kind got them back on their heels there, we were preventing them from scoring and we were scoring so that gave us some separation.”
Hillcrest improves to 17-2, and 15-1 in the SEISC-North, while Lone Tree falls to 4-14, and 2-13 in conference. The Ravens formalized their conference championship, while Lone Tree sits eighth with one game still to play against Highland next week.