LITTLETON — The race for the Class 6A Jeffco League boys basketball title has turned into a three-team race.
Valor Christian (13-7, 8-1 in league), Arvada West (15-5, 7-2) and Ralston Valley (13-6, 5-3) have distanced themselves from the rest of the field with 10 days remaining in the regular season. However, things did get a little clearer Tuesday night.
Valor — No. 9 in the 6A CHSAANow.com rankings — took a big 82-63 home win over Ralston Valley to take a 2-game advantage over the Mustangs.
A-West stayed right in the mix with a tight 61-58 road victory against Chatfield. The Wildcats hung on to the win after Chatfield junior Liam McGuire’s 3-pointer at the buzzer that would have forced overtime was just short.
“It’s good to get out of here with a win playing like we did,” A-West coach Jeff Parriott said. “I don’t think we were looking ahead to Thursday, but they are kids. That might have been in the case. We walked out with a win and focus on Thursday.”
A-West has its huge rematch against Valor on Thursday night back on the Wildcats’ home court. A-West handed Valor its lone conference lost Jan. 23. A sweep of Valor would give A-West the all important tiebreaker over the Eagles if both finish with the same conference record.
“We’ve got something to play for when it comes to a league championship and something to play for when it comes to seeding when we get to the postseason,” Parriott said. “We will turn it around.”
The Wildcats’ last conference title was back in the 2017-18 season when A-West officially shared the league title with Columbine. Valor won the 5A league title back in 2020-21 and Ralston Valley captured the conference championship last year going undefeated in 5A Jeffco League play.
“We are just about the next game and right now it is tomorrow with practice,” A-West senior Carson Nichols said.
Nichols led A-West with 21 points, including going 4-for-4 from the free-throw line in the final minute. Senior Zion Thomas scored just 4 points, but was also money in the final minutes going 4-for-4 from the charity stripe.
Senior Jasper Padia had a quiet first three quarters that included some early foul trouble, but the Wildcats’ leading scored poured in 7 points in the fourth quarter to finish with 13 points.
Sophomore Jordan Stremel had a big game off the bench with 13 points, including three 3-pointers for A-West.
“Thankfully Jordan gave us that boost offensively,” Parriott said. “We really needed that after Jasper picked up his second foul and had to set a little bit in that first half.”
Junior James Hadzic had 8 points, but his biggest contribution in the fourth quarter was taking two defensive charges.
“If those kind of small things don’t happen we don’t win the game,” Nichols said of Stremel’s pair of 3-pointers and Hadzic’s two defensive plays in fourth quarter. “Those were big by those guys.”
Chatfield (5-14, 1-7) has lost 9-of-10 games, but defintely had a strong showing against the league-title hunting Wildcats. Senior Shay Rumsey had 21 points for the Chargers. Senior Donovan Doyle came off the bench with 11 points, including two 3-pointers in the final 22 seconds that cut the Wildcats’ lead to 1-point on both occasions.
“I thought Chatfield outplayed us. I thought they played harder and played smarter than we did,” Parriott said.
Chatfield has the chance to play spoiler in its final two games next week. The Chargers are at Valor (Wednesday, Feb. 15) and home against Ralston Valley (Friday, Feb. 17). It isn’t likely that Chatfield will make the 32-team field for the 6A state tournament. The Chargers were No. 44 in the RPI standings before Tuesday’s games.
After the big game against Valor coming up Thursday, Wildcats close out the regular season on the road against Bear Creek (Saturday, Feb. 11) and at home versus Columbine (Friday, Feb. 17).
“We’ve got three opponents coming up that not a single one of them are going to give us an off night,” Parriott said. “They are three really good teams.”