Sabercats fall in quarterfinals in low-scoring affair
Coach Menefee and Fossil’s bench during Friday’s loss.
March 7, 2022
The Fossil Ridge High School girls basketball team finished their season at the Denver Coliseum, losing in the Great Eight in a regular season rematch Arapahoe Warriors 53-46.
The Sabercats started the day slow, giving up 15 points in the 1st quarter. Fossil could not keep up with the Warriors’ hot start, trailing by six points after the first eight minutes.
Fossil Ridge continued to apply pressure all game, including cutting the lead down to two points with 90 seconds left in the game. Despite the constant battle, Fossil never led once, unable to make that signature basket.
The team improved significantly since playing Arapahoe, closing the gap from the thirteen down to seven, despite scoring 46 points both times.
It was not all doom and gloom for the Sabercats, as several of their players put up impressive performances. The leading scorer was, sophomore, Ella Lavigne, scoring 16 points and continuing her stretch of dominance. Fossil’s other sophomore, Kaycee Steinke, scored all of her nine points during the second half. The final noteworthy performance came from senior, Jessica Rockwell. Rockwell scored her eight points during the first half, keeping Fossil in the game when the offense was struggling.
This marked Rockwell and Maddie Kohler’s final game in a Sabercat uniform, as the two senior guards will be moving onto bigger and better things. Fossil has a strong core remaining, between Steinke, Lavigne, and their two junior starters, Kate Davis and Kylie Ballek. In addition to these four returning players, there are multiple ladies ready to make the leap next season. While this ends one era for Fossil Ridge, the team is prepped to take the next step into the future.
Sarah Davis • Mar 9, 2022 at 3:12 pm
Thank you Dylan for writing this. And although you mentioned many good performances of the women on the b-ball team, I do think you might have left out something big. The 2nd leading scorer of the game, Kate Davis, who is 5’9”, was guarding 6’3” Arapahoe star player Sam Crispe, who has been the leading scorer for Arapahoe the entire season. Kate Davis held Sam to her lowest scoring game of the season with only 8 points. Also, kate Davis is not the tallest girl on the team, but always has to guard the tallest player on defense. It wouldn’t have mattered how many points we scored at all, if we had not contained Sam. Last time we played Arapahoe, we were losing by 25 points until the middle of the 4th quarter. That is when Kate Davis was just coming back from a fractured ankle she suffered during a Fossil basketball game in December. She played on this still healing ankle the remainder of the season. And managed to be the leading scorer for the season as well.