COLORADO SPRINGS – Widefield and Palmer boys basketball were both reminded of an important lesson regarding February basketball. Nothing comes easy at this time of the year. The Terrors cruised in the last outing against the Gladiators, winning by 19 points and establishing themselves as potential Colorado Springs Metro League South champion.
But knowing how competitive the league is, a second win wasn’t going to come easy. Palmer held a double-digit lead early but needed a late free throw to get a 66-65 win, keeping their hopes for a league championship alive.
“It’s always tough to beat teams twice, especially in our league,” Palmer coach Jim Grantz said. “A lot of people sleep on teams in our league, but we have a lot of great athletes and coaches and kids who play hard.”
Playing hard was the theme of the night for both teams. The Terrors (13-6 overall, 6-1 5A/4A CSML South) held even with Widefield through much of the first quarter before exploding on an 11-0 run to take a 21-12 lead. Jaelyn Robinson paced the Terrors in that quarter with seven points and finished with a game-high 25.
The Gladiators (9-10, 3-4) started a bit stagnant on offense and scored just 20 points in the entire first half. But to start the third quarter, something changed. TJ Coleman led the charge as they scored 24 points and closed the gap to just five by the time the quarter was over.
“I had the hot hand so they just kept feeding me,” Coleman said. “I just kept scoring.”
And with that, coach Alex Johnson’s team started believing that it could contend with Palmer. But coming all the way back and trying to pull out the win was never going to come easy.
“No matter what the score was, they kept playing,” Johnson said. “My thing was we were just as good as they were and they didn’t believe it until the third when we came out and started shooting and started scoring.”
Grantz knew that letting Coleman keep his hot hand would lead to eventual disaster. He threw a few different defensive looks at him, one of which included manning up freshman Jackson Weber on him.
“We were searching,” Grantz said. “Between Melvin Saffold Jr, who we call Peanut, and Jackson they were just trying to make him work harder.”
It worked in the fourth quarter as Coleman was held to just four points. He ended the night with a team-high 19 points.
His work getting the Glads back in the game didn’t go unrewarded as his teammates picked him up in the fourth. Shamari Moncrief scored all seven of his points in the quarter and Cole Brooks added five as Widefield tied the game on several occasions. The game was notched up 65-65 when Peanut was fouled with the Terrors in the double-bonus. He sank one of two free throws to get the game-winning point.
But it was the free throw shooting from Robinson that really made the difference. He kept pressuring the Widefield defense and ended up with 11 opportunities from the charity stripe in the fourth quarter. He sank all but two of them and each one of those shots were needed.
“When it’s time to step up, this is how I come through,” Robinson said. “That’s what I’m supposed to do, knock them down and win the game.”
Palmer has three more league games on the slate as they continue hunting for a league championship. One of those games includes a showdown with Mesa Ridge who is the only other team with one loss in league play.
In the playoff picture, Palmer currently sits at No. 22 in the 5A RPI while Widefield is at No. 31.
