Cottonwood Middle School’s eighth-grade boys basketball team finished its season on a high note, taking the Quad City Tournament championship with a 39-36 win over Bradshaw Mountain Middle School, hosted at CMS on Friday, March 3.
Before the tournament, the Lobos [12-1] rounded out the regular season with two lopsided wins against Glassford Hill Middle School on Feb. 27 and at Prescott Mile High Middle School on Feb. 28.
The two victories gave the Lobos the No. 1 seed in the Quad City Tournament.
In the championship game, the Lobos would have been up 15-14 on the Bradshaw Mountain Middle School Bears at halftime, but a Bears buzzer-beating three-pointer stole momentum from the Lobos to go up 17-15.
Throughout the game, Cottonwood did a good job of rebounding and executing in its halfcourt offense.
“Offensively we did execute some good halfcourt offense versus their zone,” head coach Brandon Figy said. “Catching them off guard with quick passing really helped.”
According to Figy, what propelled them to victory had more to do with the players’ mentality, which translated to on-court success.
“Our mental maturity, we’ve been working on it all year,” Figy said. “We stayed calm and poised, fighting and executing and pulled it out.”
With the No. 1 seed came a first-round bye, and the Lobos defeated Mile High yet again in their first game on March 3, this time 52-20.
“We told the boys all week at practice, ‘You’ve got to come out quick, not let up and start fast,” Figy said.
Cottonwood was up 36-11 at halftime and the substitutes got the majority of the action in the second half, surrendering just nine points. They did, however, send the Badger Pups to the free throw line four consecutive times, who only made two of eight attempts.
Figy reminded his team to not look ahead to the championship game.
“It was good, they did what we asked them to do,” Figy said.
