Horizon boys hoops outlasts Arvada West in 2OT thriller

ARVADA — Horizon and Arvada West boys basketball teams got some overtime in before the holiday break.

The Hawks (6-1 record) and Wildcats (6-2) battled through a pair of overtime periods before Horizon finally came away victorious with an 83-81 win in double-overtime.

“This is huge. We are doing great,” Horizon sophomore Noah Sokolowski said after the Hawks extended their winning streak to six games as Horizon is near the top-10 in the early Class 6A RPI rankings. “We wanted to win this game to stay in that high (rankings) area.”

Sokolowski got the defensive play of the game blocking the Wildcats’ chance to send the game into a third overtime period. A-West junior Noah Meurer was fouled with 1.6 seconds left and Horizon up 83-81 in the 2OT.

Meurer missed his first free throw, so he had to intentionally miss the second shot and hope A-West could get the rebound and a put-back to tie the game. It nearly worked out with senior Connor Woods able to get the ball, but his shot in the lane was rejected by the 6-foot-8 sophomore.

“I don’t know what I was thinking,” Sokolowski said of his game-saving block. “My job was just to get there and block it. That is all I was trying to do.”

A-West got 3-pointers from Woods and Meurer in the second overtime, but Horizon junior Carter Marsh made his only two shots of the game on open 3-pointers to keep the Hawks in position to steal the road victory.

“That saved us,” Sokolowski said of Marsh’s pair of 3-pointers in the second overtime. “If we didn’t have those two 3-pointers we would have lost the game.”

Senior Aiden Greene’s bucket with 48 seconds left gave the Hawks the lead for good at 82-80. Greene finished with a game-high 25 points. Sokolowski finished in double-digit points with 17, as did sophomore Boaz Wisne (16 points) and senior Dane Bauer (11 points).

“Horizon is a great team,” A-West coach Danny Vais said. “I know a lot of their players and coaches. We didn’t lose to a bad team. Our guys got a gut check. That’s the second game we’ve lost when we’ve had at least a 10-point lead. We need to figure out a way to finish some stuff.”

The Wildcats had their 4-game winning streak come to an end. Junior Keegen Balistreri had a team-high 24 points. Meurer finished with 13 points and sophomore Cooper Vais had 17 points.

Cooper Vais did have the shot of the night. The sophomore launched nearly a full-length shot after a missed shot by the Hawks at the end of the first quarter. Cooper’s shot hit nothing but net to give A-West a 15-10 lead after the opening quarter.

The Wildcats’ biggest lead of the night came midway through the third quarter. A-West led 44-27 after a 3-point play by senior Mason Lusche. However, Horizon had an 11-0 run early in the fourth quarter to start its comeback attempt.

“We’ll go into the next team,” Vais said about hosting Brighton on Friday night. “That is what I just told the boys.”