3/1/24
Denver, CO – The Windsor Wizards advanced to the 5A Final Four Friday afternoon at the Denver Coliseum, holding off the Lewis-Plamer Rangers 74-68. It appeared that in the early going the Wizards would put the game way early building a 20 point lead. But the Rangers had other ideas would take the double digit lead and wear it down to three points with less than two minutes to play.
Windsor built the early lead by picking apart the Rangers man-toman defense. Back screen, shuffle cut, or any kid of cut really made it easy for the Wizards to find the open man for a bucket. It wasn’t only one Wizard doing the scoring damage early; at least seven different Wizards scored in the first quarter. All the Wizards points were coming from the paint as well.
Lewis-Palmer started to way up towards the end of the 2nd quarter, and Cohen Edmondson kept the Rangers close. Even though the Wizards were maintaining the lead, the momentum was sifting to the side of the Rangers.
By the 4th quarter, the momentum was entirely on the side of the Rangers. Edmondson was hitting big shots, Jelks added a big corner 3 and Noah Johnson hit the jumper that cut the Windosr lead to 3 in the midst of the 27 points the Rangers put in the final quarter.
Sophomore Madden Smiley was making basket after basket for the Wizards, though. The free throws he did make kept the Wizards to the drivers seat. Smiley finished with 29 points and 11 rebounds. Deacon Schmitt was also vital to keeping the Wizards in the lead as he made two big layups to keep the Wizards up by 5.
