Last-second score spoils Sierra’s last-minute rally

    Coach Nate Hansen had a simple request for his Sierra girls basketball team Saturday afternoon - keep fighting. But not even he could have envisioned the heartbreaking result that awaited the Stallions after working so hard to overcome deficit after deficit.

    With the game tied for the sixth time in the second half, this time at 44, Taylor Stolte's putback with 1 second left stunned Sierra and sent the top-seeded Demons to the 4A state semifinals with a 46-44 victory at Golden High School.
    Golden (22-4), which has won 17 straight, will play Broomfield in the state semifinals Wednesday in Boulder.

    The Stallions, which led just once - for 13 seconds in the first quarter - trailed by eight twice in the fourth quarter, the final time at 44-36 with 3:38 remaining.

    But then Sierra scored the game's next eight points, tying the game with 16 seconds left on Janeesa "Chucky" Jeffery's layup. Jeffery finished with a game-high 22 points.

    But Golden got back to what had been working well. The pick-and-roll played havoc with Sierra's defense, resulting in layups in the lane.

    "You know it created problems. Chelsea (Rotondo) and Angel (Sullivan) had to fight the screens. I thought it was one of our better defensive efforts," Hansen said.

    After getting away from it in the final 4 minutes, Golden went back to its bread-and-butter play with the game on the line. And it nearly worked.
    Cassie Lambrecht, who led Golden with a team-high 14 points, was fouled going to the basket, resulting in two free throws.
    What happened next nobody could have expected.
    The usually sure-shooting Lambrecht, a former Palmer standout, missed both free throws.

    The ball fumbled away from Sierra's Jeffery and Paige Dias, who were battling for the rebound, and into Stolte's hands. The rest is history.
    "It would've worked in our favor if she had made it. Then we would've got the ball," Hansen said of Lambrecht's second free throw.
    But the only thing Sierra got was heartbreak.
    While the finish was stunning for the Stallions (22-4), it was just as much, if not more so, for Golden.
    "Oh, man, no," a surprised Stolte said. "I'm speechless."

    Golden coach Jeff Neal directed his team to slow the game down and stall. Neal wanted to give Lambrecht, who was battling an illness, a breather.
    If not for Stolte's last-second heroics, more than Lambrecht may have been feeling under the weather.

    "Not in a million years," Neal said that he would've thought Lambrecht would miss those final two foul shots. "I would bet my life that Cassie would make those free throws. But every girl has an impact and can make big plays."
    On Saturday, that was Stolte. Much to Sierra's dismay.