COLORADO SPRINGS – When Joel Babbitt took over the Mesa Ridge boys basketball team, he saw a group of hard-working kids on the verge of achieving heights the program had never seen before.
He saw boys who just wanted to be coached. When he was given the job of doing just that, he realized he hadn’t taken over one of the top teams in the Colorado Springs area, he had taken over one of the top teams in the state.
To prove it, the schedule was loaded with other top teams like Pueblo South and Lewis-Palmer. With a 44-40 win over last year’s Class 4A champion Rangers, the Grizzlies have proven that they are indeed the real deal.
“I came from Lewis-Palmer,” Babbitt said. “So to come down here and hold Lewis-Palmer to 40 and to have them hold us to 44, we did our job and they did their job. A lot of people don’t love that kind of basketball, but Coach (Bill) Benton and I love that kind of basketball. It was beautiful.”