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The 70-55 final score of Tuesday’s boys basketball game between Aspen and Eagle Valley belied the bevy of big plays and back-and-forth drama which unfolded between the opening tip and the final buzzer. In a showdown between the sixth-best team in 4A and the No. 14-ranked 5A squad, both threw a few haymakers.

“The first half was incredibly fun,” said first-year Devils head coach Zach Haglin. “We had a lot of good runs.” 

Aspen eventually pulled away from Eagle Valley late in the fourth-quarter to win its fifth-straight game. The ߣÏÈÉúers — who went 27-0 to win the 2022 state title and were 19-6 but fell in double-overtime to DSST: Montview in the second round of the state tourney last year — were unfazed playing in the Gypsum gym. The Devils’ Roaring Fork rivals were strong with the dribble and smart in their shot selection.

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“They’re super disciplined,” Haglin said. “Watching how well they take care of the ball — they drive, kick — they just work it and work it until they get a good shot.”

Led by captain Tommy Franceschi, who scored 10 of his team-high 17 points in the opening quarter, the ߣÏÈÉúers jumped out to a 19-7 lead. Eagle Valley’s dynamic and lanky leading scorer, Dylan Zoller, was quiet early on. In fact, the senior — who dropped 30 against Grand Junction Central earlier this year and is averaging over 18 points per game — didn’t hoist his first shot until 2:57 left in the period. But after Franceschi found Jack Berro for a triple to make it a 12-point game, Zoller responded with a top-of-the-key 3-point swish of his own. He stole the ball on the next possession and went coast-to-coast for two more before a monster one-handed block on the other end revitalized the Eagle Valley faithful.

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“He turned on a switch for sure,” Haglin said of Zoller, who opened the second quarter with a put-back dunk off of Jonah Medina’s missed layup. “He gets energized — especially when he throws down a dunk like that. He feeds on that success and when he’s on, look out. He’s a heck of an athlete and player.”

Eagle Valley guard Brian Fontana tied the game up for the first time 2 minutes into the second with a baseline 3-pointer, his second of the night. Aspen followed with a 10-0 run, but the Devils didn’t cave. Zoller found Parker Newbanks for a pair of 3-pointers and Malachi Barros scored two field goals — including an offensive put back with 1 second left — as Eagle Valley responded with its own 10-0 spurt, making it 32-32 at the half. Haglin said the spark was in part due to a smaller lineup.

“We went a little bit faster and it just kind of worked for us coming into the half,” he said.

After each team got its high-octane runs out of the way, Aspen reoriented play to the post in the third. With Eagle Valley big man Tyler Bates in foul trouble, 6-foot-5 center Henry Hurd went to work. The ߣÏÈÉúer senior scored back-to-back post ups and controlled the offensive boards as Aspen went up 44-36 with less than three minutes left. While Eagle Valley had been fronting Hurd — and providing ample backdoor help — in the first half, eventually the undersized Devils wore down.

“It felt like when we got a little bit tired we kind of fell behind them and allowed the ball to get deeper,” Haglin said. “The second half, we just couldn’t stay in front of him and keep them from getting the ball down low.”

After dropping 20 points in the second, the Devils’ offense sputtered much of the third. Once again, however, the home team closed with a bang. Eagle Valley scored the final four points, including a buzzer beater off the glass from Jonah Medina to bring things back within five going into the last eight minutes.

But Giovanni Seeman scored 12 of his 15 points in the second half and Hurd scored seven in the fourth — including a put back off his own missed free throw that took the life out of any potential Eagle Valley rally.

“Coming in, I knew they were going to be tough,” Haglin stated after the 15-point loss, which dropped the Devils to 11-4 overall. “We were focused on limiting offensive rebounds and we didn’t quite get the job done. I think shot selection was a big one, too. We took better shots I thought in the first half than the second half. Aspen only takes good shots it seems.”

Even though the Devils have dropped two straight games after ripping off an eight-game win streak from Dec. 13 to Jan. 14, Haglin is feeling good with where his team is at going into the league opener against Summit on Jan. 28.

“We just had two tough losses against really good opponents,” he said. “We’re going to try to use that to springboard the process of getting better so when playoff time comes around, we can beat that level of competition.”