Walton and Wildcats Wallop Ralston Valley
Friday night in front of a packed gymnasium the Ralston Valley Mustangs hosted the Arvada West Wildcats in a match up of 5A Jeffco rivals. The Mustangs were hoping the raucous crowd would give them a home court advantage but Arvada West’s Dallas Walton had other plans. With colleges like CU, DU, SMU and TCU in attendance, Walton scored a game high 22 points and grabbed six rebounds as Arvada West soundly defeated Ralston Valley 58-38.
One of the more intriguing match ups of the night was Walton going against Ralston Valley’s own seven footer Antonio Capley. It’s a rarity that either of these two face anyone that comes close to their size or ability while playing in 5A Jeffco let alone in the state. The match up lived up to it’s billing in the first quarter. Both had their moments in the paint and lead their teams in scoring. While the big men were dominating, Ralston Valley was content taking time off the clock running looking for a high percentage shots running it’s offense for long stretches of time but coming up empty. The Wildcats seemed content to let the Mustangs have long possessions until four minutes left in the quarter and they extended their man to man defense to half court and then mixed in a little run and jump to speed up the Mustangs. The switch in defenses got the desired result the Wildcats wanted and finished the quarter on a 9-3 run capped by this lay up in the closing seconds by senior guard Luke Neff.
The Wildcats led 13-7 at the beginning of the second quarter and would dominate the rest of the half. The Mustangs Capley picked up a questionable hanging on the rim technical foul as there were people under him, just under a minute into the quarter. That seemed to set the tone for the Mustangs as Capley left in the game in foul trouble. The Mustangs could not get much going only scoring seven points in the quarter. The Wildcats did have a two minute scoring drought but got rolling with six different players scoring in the last half of the quarter ending on a 14-4 run. The Wildcats led 31-14 and looked poised to ride the Mustangs out of the gym.
The Mustang however had other plans in mind and locked up on the defensive end of the floor in the third quarter, holding Arvada West to 8 points. Ralston Valley held Arvada West scoreless for the first four minutes of the quarter but they only managed to score 5 points themselves. Dante Greco and Jared Parker combined to score 10 points for the Wildcats in the quarter but trailed 39-26 at the end of the quarter. The empty possessions and turnovers plagued Ralston Valley the entire game.
Walton hit a 3 pointer to start the quarter and was followed by another 3 pointer from Neff to push the Wildcat led to 45-26 with just under 7 minutes to play in the game. Walton and Capley exchanged buckets but the Mustangs couldn’t keep up the scoring pacing. Arvada West maintained a 20 point lead through the rest of the quarter as Walton scored eight more points and made a great pass to Will Wittman for the dunk of the night. The final score 58-38.
Double Digit Scorers
Arvada West
Dallas Walton 22
Josh Martin 11
Luke Neff 10
Ralston Valley
Dante Greco 14
