The girls’ basketball banner hanging in the gymnasium at Clear Creek High School doesn’t have an asterisk next to the 2016 Frontier League championship recognition, but it could.
After all, the Lady Golddiggers shared last year’s title with Bennett and Middle Park. This year, there is no sharing.
Grace Werlin and Rachel Lucas scored 16 points each, and Clear Creek never trailed in pulling away from Academy 50-32 on Feb. 14, claiming a winner-take-all showdown for the 3A/2A Frontier League championship at CCHS.
“This is great way to end the regular season. I’m very proud of the team and how we’ve worked and grown together,” said junior Samantha O’Brien, who dished out a game-high seven assists.
Clear Creek (17-2 overall, 12-0 conference) built an early lead behind a 10-2 first-quarter run and led by as much as 20 in the third quarter before Academy (16-4, 11-1) closed to within 11 with 5 minutes, 11 seconds left in the fourth. But Werlin and Lucas combined to hit three 3-pointers to build the lead back to 20 — 49-29 — in the game’s closing minute.
“We just needed to stay composed. We needed to play our game,” Lucas said. “We have to rely on each other to play our game. Coming together really helps us. Just knowing each and every one of us has each other’s back is awesome.”
The championship is extra special for the team’s lone senior, Madelyn Fahnline. She studied overseas last season.
“Last year when they won I was so excited,” Fahnline said, hoping that she’d get that opportunity to celebrate in 2017. “This is so overwhelming, and I’m proud of us that we were able to do it again.”
It was a goal that Clear Creek talked about before the season, Lucas said. But to actually achieve it, and in such a fashion by running the table in league play is almost unfathomable.
“I wouldn’t have thought it would’ve been this great, but they’re a great, special group. They will hopefully continue to be special through the next few games that we play,” Clear Creek head coach Marc Gorenstein said. “Then we’ll see how we’ll do in state as well if we can make it.”
Clear Creek began 2A District 7 tournament play on Tuesday night at home against Dawson (8-11). Results from that game weren’t available at press time.
Only undefeated Paonia (18-0) entered the 2A playoffs hotter than Clear Creek, which has won 17 straight. The Lady Golddiggers haven’t lost since the first two games of the season — a pair of losses by a combined six points.
“We’ve been working really hard,” O’Brien said. “I think we just took it one game at a time. That’s all that we can do is come out and play as hard as we can one game at a time and keep working.”
The fact that sizzling-hot Lady Diggers had to take a week off between winning the league championship and district play could be a detriment, but Gorenstein was optimistic that it was good timing for his team to get refreshed before the playoffs.
“I think that a week off does make it a little more challenging, but I think the girls need to get off their feet a little bit just to be ready and get ready for districts,” Gorenstein said.