On a night when Arapahoe successfully neutralized Bud Thomas, there simply were too many other Raiders to cover Friday night.
In particular, Joey Ptasinski and Michael Clark handled the scoring as defending Class 5A state champion Regis Jesuit (25-1) withstood opening and late lapses to earn its 24th straight victory and 43rd in a row against in-state competition with an 86-72 victory over the Warriors.
Raiders coach Ken Shaw said he learned something from Arapahoe’s Sweet 16 victory — namely that the Warriors, who trailed early against East, wouldn’t go away.
“And we knew they’d try to take away Bud,” Shaw said.
Enter Ptasinski, who had another stellar game with 25 points as well as a handful of steals, rebounds and assists. But Clark also turned in a 23-point effort, a career high.
“Bud was kicking it out and we were fortunate to be knocking them down,” Clark said.
Arapahoe (22-4) ran to a 9-2 lead on three 3-pointers by Tim Billingsley and actually cut it to eight points with 1:54 to play. But in between, Regis Jesuit simply had too much, running to a 20-point lead in the second half, and Arapahoe coach Dan Snyder knew it.
“They were the better team,” Snyder said. “And we had too many turnovers. You can’t do that against them.”
Late free throws by Clark, Ptasinski, Thomas and Drew Dyer sealed it. Thomas and Dyer each scored 10 points.
For Arapahoe, Billingsley (23 points), Parker Semin (20) and Dan Eigner (12) led the way.
Neil H. Devlin: 303-954-1714 or ndevlin@denverpost.com
