DENVER – After thirteen lead changes and an absolute slugfest of a Class 6A Great 8 basketball game, Carter Basquez wasn’t going to let Smoky Hill go down against Mountain Vista without a mighty big swing.

After an inbounds pass with 4.4 seconds remaining, the Buffaloes sophomore guard received the ball at the top of the arc, drove to the hoop and hit a looping, right-handed layup as the buzzer sounded to send Smoky Hill to the Final 4 with a 63-62 victory on Thursday night at the Denver Coliseum.

“We just worked so hard this whole year,” Basquez said. “My teammates trusted me. My dawgs passed me the ball and trusted me. We were way too hard to go out like that.”

The game-winner came after Mountain Vista nearly had an incredible buzzer-beater of its own. At the start of an inbounds play, Jacob Hoefs saved the ball from going out of bounds and fired it to Oliver Junker, who crashed to the middle of the paint and hit a floater and drew the foul. The subsequent free throw gave the Golden Eagles a 62-61 advantage.

Knotted 51-51 entering the fourth quarter, the Buffaloes opened with a 5-0 run that the Golden Eagles answered with a 6-0 rally to retake the lead on Jacob Hoefs’ 3-pointer with 3:13 to go. The team’s traded leads four more times before Basquez’s winner.

Kaylan Graham led the Buffaloes with 19 points while Basquez finished with 17 points and Lorenzo Contrerras contributed 16 points on 6-of-9 shooting.

Junker had 22 points and 14 rebounds — six on the offensive end — while Hoefs added 16 points.

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Eaglecrest 61, Fruita Monument 53

(Doug Ottewill/ColoradoPreps.com)

The No. 8 Raptors held off a furious comeback from top-seeded Fruita Monument, who cut a 20-point deficit in the third quarter to a single possession by the midway point in the fourth.

Still, the strong play of big man Garrett Barger anchored the Raptors through a tumultuous second half. The junior, listed at 6-foot-8, finished with a team-high 18 points, 14 rebounds and four blocks. His effort was punctuated by a fierce, two-handed slam late in the fourth quarter that helped salt the game away.

“From the beginning, the nerves were starting,” Barger said. “When we had that lead and they started making that run, we just said. ‘OK, OK, it’s our time now.”

LaDavian King ran point for the Raptors and contributed 15 points, scored mostly from the outside on four 3-pointers. The first two possessions of the game saw King knock down back-to-back shots from deep, cutting into Fruita’s early seven-point surge.

This will be Eaglecrest’s first trip to the Final 4 under coach Jarris Krapcha, who has been eliminated in the quarterfinal round three times since taking over from John Olander in 2017-18.

“We needed to maintain our composure and value the basketball,” Krapcha said. “We needed to get some stops, rebound and follow the scout. I thought we had a pretty good scout on (Fruita). When you play in our league, you’re going to blow some leads, play some tight ones here and there. Our kids have been through it, which I think helps a lot.”

Fruita Monument will look to battle back will a squad that’s returning three starters and its two leading scorers. Junior post Daniel Thomason paced the Wildcats with 18 points than included a pair of breakaway dunks, while sophomore guard Jhett Wells chipped in 14 points with three 3-pointers.

“I felt like we were battle-tested,” Wells said. “We just got caught a little early and it’s hard to duplicate this environment if you don’t come over here every year like the ThunderRidges or Chaparrals. They’re here every year and this is our first time ever. Hopefully we can build on this and have another crack at it.”