There was no question that the Denver East Angels were the favorites to win the 5A Boys State Championship.  East was the only number one seed left, and Eaglecrest was a number two seed.  And earlier this season Denver East handed Eaglecrest a 20 point loss.  So, it was just a given that East was going to be the 5A Champs after the next 4 quarters of basketball.  It was a given to everyone except for coach John Olander and his Eaglecrest High School Raptors Varsity Team.

Eaglecrest came out on fire, both offensively and defensively.  Even the Gatorade State Player of the Year, Denver Easts Dominique Collier could hardly handle the offense and defense coming from the Raptors.  In the first quarter the Raptors outscored the Angels by a score of 12 to 7.

The second quarter would be more of the same as the Eaglecrest High School boys outscored East by four points, taking an important 9 point halftime lead of 26 to 17 into the locker room.  It was going to take a huge effort by Denver East to come back in the second half.

And Denver East did come out of the locker room with a little more energy in the third period.  But the Raptors had more energy, outscoring the Angels by one in the third, taking a ten point 43-33 lead into the fourth quarter.  You could feel the energy just radiating from the Eaglecrest bench.

And the route began.  In the first 4 minutes of the fourth, the regular players for Eaglecrest continued to build on their lead, and with less than 4 minutes to go, Coach Olander started putting in his bench.  Everyone was going to get into this game.

The Denver East Angels were outscored by 9 points in the 4th as the Eaglecrest Raptors won the 5A State Championship game by a score of 63-44.

And this was a different ending than all the other games of the 3 days.  It was the only game that scads of Boulder police positioned themselves around the court to keep fans off the floor and to keep the peace.  First time I had seen more than a couple officer

In looking back, I am really glad that I went in Thursday morning 6 hours before the games started and set my strobes up.  I had to go back Monday morning to take them down, but the light they added made all the difference in the world.  I would rather put up a total of 6 strobes, giving me a little more baseline coverage and more even light coverage.  But 4 strobes were great.

Congratulations to both Denver East and Eaglecrest for making the final four, and congrats to Eaglecrest for winning the 2013 5A State Championship.  To view and purchase photos from this game, please visit Maxpreps.