BROOMFIELD — Only the best basketball games can raise a coach’s blood pressure.
Broomfield boys head coach Terrence Dunn knows that experience all too well, after a 25-point lead over visiting Monarch evaporated in the final minutes on Tuesday night in their home gym. In the end, the Eagles pulled out a heart-stopping, 66-64 victory over the Coyotes thanks to a few missed free throws on both ends down the stretch.
Talk about adversity.
“The trainer hasn’t checked on me yet, but I’m all right,” Dunn laughed. “I told the guys they’re giving me more gray hairs by the second right now.”
Broomfield senior Quin Galka began the game shooting lights out as he — and he alone — put the Eagles up 13-2 through the first five and a half minutes of play. He finished the night with 19 points, only to be slightly outshined by his teammate, sophomore Joey Cook, who netted 22. Senior Canon Juarez kept the fire going with 12 points of his own as the Eagles as a whole displayed tough defense in the first half and in the waning minutes of the fourth quarter.
The Coyotes, likewise, saw strong offensive production from four of their leading men thanks to senior point guard Dean Reeves (15 points), junior Van Nellessen (13 points), junior point guard Tyler Carlson (12 points) and junior Evan Trujillo (11 points).
Heart attack or not, the Eagles and Coyotes sure know how to put on an exciting performance.
The Eagles — cough, cough, Galka — began the game shooting white-hot, all while stymying the Coyotes from the floor at every chance they got. Broomfield led 20-2 at the end of the first quarter and waited another 1:21 seconds into the next quarter before letting the Coyotes net a single field goal.
Reeves ended that drought with a hook shot.
“My teammates were finding me. I was open, so I was just letting it fly, got to the rim a few times. Everything was falling for me,” Galka said. “It was so fun.”
Broomfield continued to dominate in every facet of the game, going up by as much as 37-12 midway through the second quarter before leading 43-23 at the half. Monarch knew something needed to change, and that halftime message was well-received.
“We knew that they were just pushing out,” Reeves explained. “They were getting behind us a lot on fast breaks, so we made sure our guys knew to tell coach when they were tired so we could get fresh legs in there and be able to get back on defense. And then we also were able to pressure the ball pretty well. We came out in the press, which helped us get a lot of steals.”
When the scoreboard read 49-25 near the start of the second half, Reeves and Nellessen came to life. Nobody could stop them. The Coyotes spent the next six minutes bombing the nylon left and right, outscoring Broomfield 23-7 to finish out the third frame.
That set up for an exciting finish as the squads invoked a Bill Walton quote: “I wonder if there’s a record for the longest last two minutes of a basketball game.” If there is, the Eagles and Coyotes came close to breaking it.
Monarch very nearly came all the way back when, at the 4:14 mark, senior Aidan Kennedy hit a bucket to make it 59-57 in Broomfield’s favor. Fouls, free throw attempts and timeouts defined the final 254 seconds, which felt like an eternity as overtime became more and more of a possibility.
The Eagles would have none of that.
In the end, Broomfield pulled out the stunner, which an hour earlier seemed impossible. Huge holes clearly don’t scare this Monarch team.
“We’re never down and no deficit’s too big,” Monarch head coach Tim DeBerry said. “We’ve just got to keep playing, keep fighting. That’s all.”
With the win, the Eagles improved to 12-5 and 6-3 in the Front Range League as the Coyotes fell to 10-7 (4-5). Now, Broomfield will look to start another winning streak when it hosts Boulder on Friday while Monarch looks to rebound against Fairview on the same night.
“Something we’ve been talking about all year is how close we are,” Dunn said. “And I think because we’ve been close in some games, we’ve been disappointed. Even though we’re 12-5, I think there’s been some disappointment. We talked about being easy to please and hard to satisfy.”
