Call it the Corbin Garver Game.
With Air Academy on the ropes early in the first half of the Class 5A Final 4 against Frederick, Garver took over. He went on a scoring spree to give the Kadets the lead at half with 15 straight second-quarter points en route to a game-high 27 and 74-59 victory.
“I had a terrible game last game, and I had something to prove that I wasn’t the player I showed in the Great 8,” Garver said. “I was bad from the field (with a season-low eight points on 3-of-13 shooting), and I wasn’t mentally locked in. But this game, I knew it was going to be different. I brought it.”
The Kadets had three other players score in double-digits to surge into Saturday’s title game at the Denver Coliseum. Air Academy is seeking its third state championship to add to a Class 4A title in 2015 and 3A crown in 1989. The Kadets will take on the winner of Friday night’s game between Mesa Ridge and Windsor.
“I don’t know going in who’s going to score each night, but they seem to figure it out by the end of the game,” 15th-year Air Academy coach Barry Clark said. “We’ve been very deliberate on the culture we’re trying to build here. To get back to another title game is really the cherry on top.”
The Golden Eagles set the tone in the first quarter, out-shooting and out-hustling the Kadets to a 15-8 lead. But the momentum, and score, swung right back in the second quarter as Air Academy used Garver’s bucket blitz to take a 31-29 lead into the locker room.
“Frederick came out and played a great first quarter,” Clark said. “Things weren’t falling for us, but we focused inward and fought through that early adversity.”
Air Academy continued to accumulate momentum in the third quarter, and for every run that Frederick had, the Kadets had a response. Frederick senior Matias Aldana, who was a force early on in the game, finished the game with 17 points, as did senior point guard Luke Justice.
But Frederick didn’t get enough scoring from its role players, and meanwhile, Air Academy was relentless on the glass. The Kadets out-rebounded Frederick 43-32, including a game-high 12 boards by Garver, and made several key shots from distance to stretch the lead.
Air Academy then got stops when they needed in the fourth quarter.
“Once we started getting defensive stops, the lead started to pile up,” Garver said. “Then our defensive intensity translated to great ball movement and decision-making on the offensive end, too.”
Top-seeded Air Academy (25-2) also got big scoring performances out of senior Grant Featherston (15 points), junior Max Howery (12) and junior Noah Hellem (10).
