It was better to be safe then sorry Tuesday, Feb. 19, at Chatfield High School.
Lakewood’s girls basketball team held a comfortable 45-21 lead, the Tigers’ biggest of the night, with 5 minutes, 34 seconds left in the fourth quarter against Chatfield.
However, when the Chargers cut Lakewood’s lead to under 10 points, 49-40, with 21 seconds left on the clock, Tigers coach Jerry Fitzgerald put the majority of his starters back on the court.
“This is too important,” Fitzgerald said of putting his starters back in. “I can’t take the chance.”
The Tigers (18-4, 8-1 in league) are on the verge of winning the Class 5A Jeffco League crown after Dakota Ridge and Chatfield have dominated the conference for the past decade. Lakewood’s 51-42 victory Tuesday night puts the Tigers one win away from not only grabbing the league title, but the highest seed out of Jeffco for the 5A state tournament.
“It’s been nobody but Dakota for way too long,” Fitzgerald said. “We’ve got to finish the job. We’ve got one more game.”
Lakewood faces Bear Creek (9-13, 4-5) in both teams’ regular season finale at 7 p.m. Friday, Feb. 22, at Lakewood High School. Lakewood and Dakota Ridge will finish with identical league marks at 9-1 if both win Friday night, but the Tigers beat the Eagles head-to-head this season, ending Dakota Ridge’s 43-game conference winning streak. Thus, Lakewood would be seeded ahead of Dakota Ridge for the state tournament.
“We definitely want that top seed,” Lakewood junior Erica Hicks said. “We’ve all wanted that conference title so bad.”
Hicks was a scoring machine against the Chargers (11-11, 4-5). The junior scored a game-high 28 points. She was 5-for-15 shooting from 3-point range. Despite going over her 21.3-point average, Hicks admits she is in a bit of a shooting lump.
“The last couple of games I’ve been off. I’ve been spending time in the gym after practice trying to get it back,” Hicks said. “Hopefully it will be back by next week.”
Senior Kait Goodall poured in 12 points for the Tigers before fouling out with 2:26 left in the fourth quarter.
Lakewood’s defense held Chatfield to eight points on 2-for-22 shooting in the first half. The Chargers turned the ball over 27 times, but also took advantage of Lakewood’s 21 turnovers late in the game to score some easy buckets in transition.
Giving up 34 points in the second half, including 21 points in the fourth quarter, was a point of concern for Lakewood.
“Unfortunately, that’s a horrible habit of ours,” Hicks said. “We get ahead in the first quarter and for some odd reason we seem to slack on defense.”
Lakewood, along with the rest of the basketball teams in the state, will learn its postseason fate when the Colorado High School Activities Association’s basketball committees release the 5A and 4A state brackets Sunday, Feb. 24. The brackets will be posted online at www.chsaa.org.