CREEDE— After a sleepwalking two point last second win over Crested Butte last Friday, the Creede Miners awoke with a convincing 49-35 victory over Sierra Grande Saturday to bring home the District 6 Class 1A Championship.

The two wins give the Miners a 19-2 record for the season. Their only district loss of the year was back on Jan. 9 to Primero, the team that Sierra beat on Friday to get into the championship game with Creede Saturday at Alamosa High School.

Creede kept the Panthers at bay the entire game to win title game. Each time Sierra mounted a challenge, the Miners answered with a big basket or a defensive stop or both. They led 23-15 at the half and outscored the Panthers 17-11 in the third quarter to build their cushion to 40-26, after three periods, a lead they maintained throughout the final period.

“We came out and went right after them,” said coach Aaron Christensen. “We did a good job on defense and shut them down for the most part.”

The Panthers employed a collapsing defense on the Miner’s leading scorer and team leader John Whitmore. The senior was surrounded by three and at times four defenders for the entire evening. Sierra was determined that Creede’s big man would not beat them, challenging the Miners to come up with a different attack.

Enter Tyler Stroh. The senior co-captain took charge, directing the Creede offense and scoring a game high 17 points. “With Johnny being triple teamed the outside opened up and Tyler took advantage of that,” said Christensen. “He led us with his running of the offense and his scoring—a great performance.”

When Stroh’s long-range NBA three pointer ripped the net at the third quarter buzzer to give the Miners a 14 point lead, the Panther’s visibly sagged. “I’m not sure they ever recovered from that,” Christensen said.

Stroh’s effort, along with Whitmore’s 12 points despite the beating he took all night, and the play of Cameron Nelson, who finished with 10 points, proved too much for the Panthers as they lost to the Miners for the third time this season.

On Friday, it appeared that the Miners might not make the championship game. Creede played their worst game of the year. They were tentative. They were uptight. They could not get shots to drop. They could not make free throws. They were out-rebounded.

They won.

Stroh’s running baseline jumper with 1.5 seconds to go gave Creede the 29-27 victory.

“We tightened up and things just got worse and worse,” Christensen said. “We seemed mentally and physically tired. For some reason, I just don’t think we were ready to play.”

With the score tied at 27 and 22 seconds to play and Creede in possession, Christensen called a time out. “The way we were playing I was afraid we would turn the ball over without getting a shot,” he said. “We wanted to calm things down and come up with a play.”

As had happened most of the night, the play broke down and it was up to Stroh to freelance for the win.