Dakota Ridge boys hoops chomp down on Standley Lake

WESTMINSTER — Dakota Ridge’s boys basketball team showed Wednesday night why the Eagles are the favorite to win the Class 5A/4A Jeffco League title for a third straight season.

The upstart Standley Lake Gators (10-5, 2-1 in 5A/4A Jeffco) came out on fire offensively on their home court against the two-time defending conference champs. Sophomore Titus Schrecengost’s 3-pointer with 1:37 left in the first quarter extended the Gators’ lead to 23-14 over the Eagles (10-5, 2-0).

“I’m really proud of my guys. They are older and mature,” Dakota Ridge coach Sean Kovar said after the Eagles rallied in the final three quarters to take a 65-48 road victory. “Nothing really rattles them in those type of situations. I thought they settled in, trusted the process and trusted what have got them here.”

It was the sixth straight win for Dakota Ridge following a 3-game losing streak around Winter Break. The Eagles lost to 6A’s Columbine, Ralston Valley and Denver South before going on their current winning streak.

It wasn’t easy against Standley Lake, who were coming off back-to-back overtime conference victories against Wheat Ridge and Green Mountain last week.

“We expected it,” Dakota Ridge senior Ethan Berninger said of Standley Lake’s offensive firepower. “Watching some film you could see they have a lot of great shooters. We knew if we stayed locked in on defense we would eventually get our stops and our offense always comes.”

Berninger hit a trio of 3-pointers in the second quarter to help Dakota Ridge take a 40-37 lead at halftime. The senior, who recently committed to continue his basketball career at Northwest Nazarene University in Idaho, poured in a game-high 30 points.

It was the third time this season Berninger has hit the 30-point mark. He is averaging nearly 23 points per game.

“I was making the 3s in the first half,” Berninger said of his four 3-pointers before halftime. “I knew they would come and try to take that away going in to the second half. I tried to focus on a pause and then exploding by. Just trying to adjust.”

Berninger attacked the paint and was a perfect 6-for-6 from the free-throw line in the second half while being guarded by Standley Lake’s 6-foot-8 sophomore Asher Serlen.

Senior Cody Rominger was the other Eagle to reach double-digit points with 17 on the night. Rominger also did a solid job defensively after Serlen had 14 points at halftime for the Gators. Serlen was limited to just 4 points in the second half.

“He (Rominger) is a dog and responded well to the halftime adjustments on how to guard (Serlen),” Kovar said. “He is just a tough kid who provides so much stability on the backside of our defense, rebounding, guarding posts and helping on ball screens. He is a coach’s dream.”

Serlen finished with 18 points. Senior Derrek Sims had a dozen points for the Gators. However, Standley Lake cooled off offensively in the second half scoring just 11 points on there made field goals after halftime.

“I thought we responded really well,” Kovar said. “It wasn’t like we were really bad on defense. (Standley Lake) just hit some really good contested shots early.”

Kovar could joke about his pre-game speech after the win. He told his team that “defense travels” with the big conference road game. Giving up 25 points in the first quarter wasn’t what Kovar had in mind.

Dakota Ridge turns its attention to a busy next handful of games. The Eagles have a non-league home game Friday night against Colorado Academy before turning right around with a league game against D’Evelyn on Saturday, followed up with another big conference road game at Green Mountain on Monday, Feb. 3.

“It makes my job easy,” Kovar said with a smile with Dakota Ridge playing four games in six days. “They (players) are the ones who have to go out and play. There isn’t much time for adjustments. They are young and we are conditioned. I think they would rather play games than practice at this point of the season.”

Standley Lake has a string of three road games coming up. The Gators are at Pomona on Saturday afternoon. Standley Lake heads up the hill next week with road games at Evergreen (Wednesday) and Conifer (Friday).