Steamboat Pilot & Today

Photo Gallery

Steamboat Springs Shoot-Out on Friday

Steamboat Springs — For those who may have written off the Steamboat Springs boys basketball team — or left in the third quarter of Friday’s game against D’Evelyn — something profound happened in the fourth quarter of the Sailors’ second game in the Steamboat Springs Shoot-Out.

After seven quarters of head scratching and sometimes hair pulling offensive ineptitude, the Sailors finally got their groove back.

Steamboat overcame a 16-point, fourth-quarter deficit against D’Evelyn — thanks in large part to 15 fourth quarter and overtime points from Charles Wood — winning, 53-51, in overtime.

It begged the question: Where has Wood been?

The senior all-league gua­­rd scored just six points in Thursday’s loss to Palmer Ridge and looked completely out of sync.

“He’s been hiding,” said Wood, who scored all five of his team’s points in overtime. “We had a team meeting (Friday) and just said we had to play our game.”

Up until the 7-minute, 10-second mark of the fourth quarter, that game was hard to watch.

Couple Thursday’s loss with the first three quarters of Friday’s game and Steamboat looked nothing like a team that returned all five starters from last year’s team.

D’Evelyn was the better ball club for the first 24 minutes, using the outside shot to build a considerable lead.

D’Evelyn led, 29-20, at halftime and had extended it to 39-26 after three quarters.

By the time Reid Bervik hit a 3-pointer to open the fourth quarter — one of his seven in the game — the Jaguars held a 42-26 lead with 7:25 left in the game.

But that’s when Steamboat found something.

The Sailors got contributions from all across the floor, and their 3-2 zone defense kept the Jaguars at bay.

D’Evelyn, which shot 10 of 34 from the 3-point line in the game, seemed resigned to taking outside shots for most of the rest of the fourth quarter.

The Jaguars were 3-of-11 from the 3-point line in the fourth quarter, taking just one shot inside the 3-point line.

“We do shoot a lot of 3s, period,” D’Evelyn coach Troy Pachner said. “That’s what we do. A couple of them weren’t the best shot selection, but in our offense, we shoot a lot of them. We had a 15 point lead, and we got timid. We just got tight.”

The Sailors ended the quarter on a 22-6 run, the tying bucket on an Isiah Mendoza-Forsyth runner with 41 seconds to go, to send the game into overtime.

D’Evelyn took a 49-48 lead in overtime before Wood gave Steamboat its first lead of the game at the 2:09 mark.

Wood bookended a free throw and basket around an Alec Comito layup to give Steamboat a 53-51 lead.

D’Evelyn had one last chance, but a contested shot near the basket just rimmed out.

“This builds our confidence,” Wood said. “This is the team we knew we were. We just didn’t show up for the other games. We needed a win like this to come out of our shell. We just found our team.”

Wood led Steamboat with 20 points and seven rebounds. Randall Nelson had 13 points and seven rebounds, and Justin Anderson had nine points.

Bervik led scorers with 22 points.

Steamboat next plays at 11:45 a.m. today against Windsor.

Steamboat Springs Shoot-Out results and schedule

Steamboat Springs High School

Friday

Boys

Castle View 68, Montrose 52

Palmer Ridge 35, Green River 33

Windsor 67, Moffat 41

Steamboat 53, D’Evelyn 51

Today’s games

N — new gym; A — auxiliary gym

Championship

Castle View vs. Palmer Ridge, 6:45 p.m. (N)

3rd and 4th place

Montrose vs. Green River, 3:15 p.m. (N)

5th and 6th place

Steamboat vs. Windsor, 11:45 a.m. (A)

7th and 8th place

D’Evelyn vs. Moffat County, 10 a.m. (N)

Girls

Fossil Ridge 36, Steamboat 27

Montrose 57, D’Evelyn 54

Windsor 72, Green River 58

Castle View 45, Moffat 43

Saturday’s games

Championship

Fossil Ridge vs. Montrose, 5 p.m. (N)

3rd and 4th place

Steamboat vs. D’Evelyn, 1:30 p.m. (N)

5th and 6th place

Windsor vs. Castle View, 11:45 a.m. (N)

7th and 8th place

Green River vs. Moffat, 10 a.m. (A)