Seemingly half the valley made the short trip down I-70 West to watch one of the best high school basketball games in recent memory. 

The Coal Ridge Titans barely withstood the Glenwood Demons varsity basketball team 62-55 in an intense and electric matchup at Coal Ridge High School on Thursday night. 

The fourth quarter began with a 11-point-lead in favor of the home team, but the Demons never quit and fought back to tie the game 55-55 with 41 seconds left in regulation. 

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The roof shuddered and shook at every explosion from either student section, and somehow stayed in place after 6’5″ sophomore Christopher Harvey threw down the hammer and the Coal Ridge students rushed onto the court to celebrate. 

“I love this, and look at that, that’s my son right in the middle!” Coal Ridge head coach Paul Harvey said referring to the mass of elated high schoolers. “We just have to go back to our fundamentals. We talk about it all the time, you don’t rise to the occasion, you sink to the level of your training. We focus on defense, and if we do our fundamentals, and don’t do anything extraordinary, we will be fine.”

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The Titans used their intoxicating crowd to their advantage from the jump, taking a 7-2 lead in the first two minutes, and never fell behind through the rest of the game. After eight minutes of play, the score was close and the gym was tense. At the end of the first quarter of basketball, the Titans were gripping onto a slim three-point-lead. But when the scoreboard buzzed marking the end of the first half, Coal Ridge was cheered off the court up 28-16. The second quarter was the difference maker for the home team. The Titans more than doubled the Demons’ points in the second quarter, and held Glenwood to just five points through the second eight minutes of the game.

“We just have to focus on the next play,” Glenwood’s head coach Matt Chilson said about the noise at halftime. “We have to make the next right decision, lock in on what we need to do. We are getting good shots, they just aren’t falling.”

Coal Ridge’s band flooded the gym in a music maelstrom, but helped build the atmosphere into that of an NBA Playoff game. Whatever Chilson said to the boys at halftime worked, and Glenwood’s fanbase did a great job of making the brief trip to Coal Ridge. After the Demons started the third quarter with a 12-3 run, cutting the lead down to three again, the big Glenwood student section let the rest of the gym know they were still there. 

The rest of the game was must-see as the intensity ramped up exponentially. The players barked at each other while the student sections insisted they couldn’t hear each other. Coal Ridge managed to get its talons around the lead once again, building it back up to 11 again at the end of the third, but the Demons immediately responded with a 10-2 run to start the fourth. 

“Their pressure got to us a little bit,” Paul Harvey admitted. “We turned the ball over a couple times.”

After putting up just three points in the first three quarters, the Glenwood senior Sayre Yellico scored 12 points in the fourth, making back-to-back three pointers and igniting a fire inside the Demons to fight down the stretch. He finished leading the Demons in points with 16, while sophomore Cale Sollars ended the game with 13. 

The gym was so tense through the final five minutes, you could feel the heartbeat of the fans through the floor of the gym. The lead jumped to five for the Titans, then the Demons scored four unanswered. The Titans sank both their free throws, then Yellico cashed another three. 

Ultimately, the Titans pushed through, and the final nail in the coffin was hammered in by Cristopher Harvey, who capped the intense win by slamming the ball home and then getting engulfed in a sea of ecstatic high schoolers. 

“It feels great,” he said. “The entire game was so exciting. The whole game the crowd was screaming, it felt great. Honestly I try to tune them out and try not to listen but it was so exciting.”

Coal Ridge improved to 8-4 on the backs of Harvey’s 16 points and senior Ben Simons’ 18 points. It is their seventh straight win in their home gym, and they look to sweep their rivalry week on Saturday when they face the Rifle Bears in Rifle. 

The Glenwood Demons girls varsity team edged out a 53-49 overtime win against the Titans girls team on Thursday night. The Lady Demons broke the Titans four game win streak by adding to their three game road win streak. Glenwood looks to reset before hosting the high powered Roosevelt Roughriders on Saturday.