Was it as rough as it looked? Final score: Regis Jesuit 43, Denver East 28.
“Yes, it was,” Raiders senior point guard Jess Lewis said. “I’d say it was. We had a big week last week, five games in six days, and we’re just trying to get our legs back.”
The Raiders, two-time defending Class 5A state champions, went against some high-end competition last week in Virginia. Ranked No. 5 in The Associated Press 5A media poll, the Raiders improved to 3-3.
And now, Lewis said, “we’re coming back and playing against people coming after us.”
Indeed, host Denver East (2-2) kept coming after the Raiders but kept firing blanks as if on a movie set. After three quarters, the Angels shot a woeful 3-of-43 and went without field goals in the first and third quarters. They misfired on their first 18 attempts.
“It was tough,” Regis Jesuit coach Carl Mattei said. “But we kept plugging along.”
Having lost two in a row coming in, Regis Jesuit, according to Mattei, avoided its own dubious stretch — in its 13th season, the Raiders have never had a three-game losing streak.
Lewis, bound for West Point, saw to it with a team-high 14 points. TaeKenya Cleveland followed with 13, and Ezekia Johnson contributed 10. JonNae Richardson led East with 13.
“The brand of basketball we have to play to win is nothing like it was at Regis Jesuit for 12 years,” Mattei said. “But we can still win if we play as a team.”
Neil H. Devlin: ndevlin@denverpost.com or
