Jefferson Academy drowns Berthoud with first-half run
Jaguars next face Resurrection Christian
BROOMFIELD >> Don’t try to test Jefferson Academy girls basketball’s resolve. It won’t go well.
On Tuesday night on their home hardwood during the first round of the Class 4A state playoffs, the 13th-seeded Jaguars absorbed an early 10-point run from No. 20 Berthoud, then responded with an even larger scoring streak to close out the first half.
Each basket during that time frame was a shovel, digging a deeper and deeper hole to stuff the Spartans in. Berthoud didn’t have a long enough ladder, as JA went on to easily win with a 5441 score. They’ll now face off with No. 4 Resurrection Christian, who blasted No. 29 The Academy with a 7111 beating, during the second round on Friday night.
“We played hard. We played until the last buzzer,” Berthoud sophomore guard Avery Pfohl said. “We just played the whole game with all the energy we had. We knew that we had to leave it all on the court but the other team knew that too. It was a battle to see who could get it.”
Pfohl led the entire field with 24 points and seemed almost infallible from the free throw line. Junior utility player Marlo Campbell led the Jaguars with 10 points, followed by nine from sophomore power forward Avah Berlin and seven from junior small forward Elsa Nygren.
Nygren was slapped around all night with hardly a foul call to bail her out.
“We’ve played some pretty tough teams with our league, but we’ve been going pretty hard,” Nygren said. “This run we had, it really helped us in getting confidence up and hitting
Jefferson Academy’s Elsa Nygren attempts a layup as Berthoud’s Sydney Slauson tries to block her during their Class 4A state playoff game Tuesday night in Broomfield.
shots. We hit as many shots as we could today and they were just sinking in.”
The first quarter saw both squads struggling to connect leather to nylon, even as the Jaguars slowly but surely built up a 16-6 lead just 20 seconds into
the second period. From there, the Spartans added some wind to their sails, taking several errant passes from the Jaguars and converting them into points.
The 16-16 tie that ensued didn’t sit quite right with the Jaguars. JA head
coach Mark Sharpley called a pivotal timeout to right the ship and gave his girls the courage to blow a hole in Berthoud’s starboard side. Jefferson Academy responded with a 21-4 run to close out the half, further dragging the Spartans underwater. “He wanted us to stay calm,” Nygren said. “He wanted us to keep going. We didn’t want to get down, so we wanted to start really high because in the past games, we’ve been kind of down. We wanted to keep going, keep the defense on (Pfohl), make sure they don’t get shots.”
Jefferson Academy led 37-20 at the half, then saw their offense dry up again to start the final 16 minutes. It didn’t much matter by that point, even as the Spartans chipped away at that lead one point at a time.
Berthoud ended its season with a 9-15 record, but hopes to build upon the foundation they began to lay through its 2023-24 run.
“I feel like this year was rebuilding,” Pfohl said. “We’ve been working with our underclassmen and giving our upperclassmen the best that we could. I feel next year is very promising for upcoming talent. You saw Sofia Sigg. She has a bright future at Berthoud.”