Good thing D’Evelyn junior Reid Bervik has a shooter’s mentality.
The Jaguars had gone scoreless for more than two minutes in the fourth quarter Friday night at home against rival Golden. The Demons snagged a 53-51 lead on a free throw by junior Michael Chacho with 1 minute, 20 seconds left in the game.
Bervik — who made two 3-pointers earlier in the game — had misfired from the field a handful of times in the second half. However, the forward didn’t hesitate to shoot from behind the arc with just more than a minute left.
“If you keep shooting one will go in eventually,” said Bervik, who finished with 10 points in the Jaguars’ 62-58 victory. “I just took what they gave me. Matt (Menard) did a good job of penetrating on the play and kicking it out to me.”
Bervik’s 3-pointer gave the Jaguars (12-6, 8-1 in Class 4A Jeffco League) the lead for good. However, it did get interesting in more ways than one in the final seconds.
Golden senior Trevor Evanson, who finished with a team-high 23 points, canned a 3-pointer with a handful of seconds left that cut the Jaguars’ lead to 59-58. Golden coach John Anderson attempted to use his final timeout before D’Evelyn inbounded the ball, but the referees didn’t stop the clock until there was less than a second left.
The three referees did huddle and eventually put 1.5 seconds back on the clock, which didn’t satisfy Anderson. A stomp of the floor during the tail-end of his argument brought on a second technical foul and an early exit for Anderson.
“I was calling timeout with four seconds left and not one of the three officials look over at me,” Anderson said. “That cost us the game.”
Anderson was hit with a technical foul in the first half and he was also upset that the officials started the third quarter while the Demons were still in a huddle at their bench, allowing D’Evelyn an uncontested layup to start the second half.
The ejection forced Anderson stay home instead of travel with his team to Summit on Monday night. The Demons did take care of business without their coach, scoring a 67-50 victory.
D’Evelyn coach Troy Pachner didn’t like how things ended in front of the standing-room-only crowd.
“John (Anderson) is a really good friend of mine. Honestly, I think that was ill-advised. There is no way he should have got tossed there,” Pachner said. “With Golden having a timeout left they (officials) have to take a look at him right there.”
The Jaguars were pleased with winning their seventh straight and staying tied with Valor Christian (15-3, 8-1) and Green Mountain (11-7, 8-1) in the conference standings. The league champion and top seed for the 4A Jeffco League tournament was decided with the league finales that were played Wednesday, Feb. 9, after press deadline.
Valor faced off against D’Evelyn and Golden (12-6, 7-2) traveled to Green Mountain on Wednesday. The four had already wrapped up the top four seeds and a bye for the conference tournament that begins Friday, Feb. 11, with the top four seeds playing each other in non-elimination games before the quarterfinals Monday, Feb. 14.
Still, Anderson wasn’t pleased with settling for a top-four seed.
“We were looking for a league championship,” Anderson said.
Evanson put on a show with his inside moves, rebounding and shot blocking ability on his way to tying his season high in points.
“When you drive Evanson is always going to be in there ready to block your shot,” D’Evelyn sophomore Luke Stratman said. “On offense, he is six inches taller than any of us. He is a tough matchup for us.”
Stratman presented Golden its own problems. The sharp shooting guard finished with a game-high 25 points, including three 3-pointers and going 6-for-6 from the free-throw line.
“God is he good,” Anderson said of Stratman. “He is NBA 3-point range. If you relax on him for a second he’ll take it to the basket and finish.”
The Jeffco tournament will finish Thursday, Feb. 17, with the finals at the top seed. The Colorado High School Activities Association will release the state tournament brackets Sunday, Feb. 20.