ERIE | The road back to Aurora went through Erie for the Cherokee Trail boys basketball team.
Coming off a regular season in which they won as many games as they had since the 2017-18 season, the Cougars were seeded No. 33 among the 40 teams to qualify for the Class 6A boys basketball postseason.
Cherokee Trail drew a visit to 32nd-seeded Erie Tuesday night with the knowledge that a win would move it into the 6A bracket to face another Aurora team, top-seeded Rangeview. Coach Brandon Brown’s Cougars earned just that scenario with a 63-47 victory that gave the program its first postseason win since that same 17-18 campaign.
Sophomore Jordan Mitchell had some explosive dunks during the fourth quarter as part of a 13-point performance, senior Vince Guthrie also had 13 and senior Nathan Baack added 12 as Cherokee Trail earned a visit to play Rangeview at 7 p.m. Friday.
“We spent a lot of time talking about how important it is for our senior group to leave a foundation for the younger guys to understand what the standard is we want to have and that’s to be a playoff team every single year,” Brown said. “We have to be in the dance before we can even think of taking steps to the (Denver) Coliseum.
“We knew because our league, if we could get into the dance, we liked our chances.”
Playing on the road and coming off a strong showing in the final game of the Centennial League Challenge, Cherokee Trail jumped out to a 15-6 lead as four different players — Mitchell, Baack, Chris Davis and Jake Scott — hit 3-pointers.
The lead was cut to six by halftime and to four after three quarters, but the Cougars finished strong with a 23-point final quarter. That included a key 3-pointer from Baack to blunt an Erie run plus a pair of dunks by Mitchell, including an alley-oop slam with just over a minute left to provide a punctuation mark to the victory.
Brown also gave credit to junior guard Caleb Jensen for his defensive work against Erie leading scorer Callen Gebhardt, who came into the game averaging 12.3 points per game, but managed just five again the Cougars.
“What Caleb did is one thing you won’t see on the stat sheet, but it was important because we knew if we could limit him (Gebhardt), we could win,” Brown said.
Brown knows what kind of challenge lies ahead now for his team, which is going against a Rangeview team that finished the regular season 23-0 and rarely been challenged throughout entire games. The Raiders have played only game decided by less than 10 points.
“It’s a great opportunity and a great blessing,” Brown said. “I think we’re playing with house money, but we’ve got some belief that we can knock them off. We’re going to go in there and play our style, keep them out of a transition and throw a different style of game at them.
“There’s nothing better than Aurora basketball and we are excited we get to have another Aurora basketball game.”
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
2025 CLASS 6A BOYS BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT (PLAY-IN)
(33) CHEROKEE TRAIL 63, (32) ERIE 47
Score by quarters:
Cher. Trail 15 11 14 23 — 63
Erie 6 14 16 11 — 47
CHEROKEE TRAIL (63)
Jordan Mitchell 5 2-4 13, Chris Davis 3 1-2 8, Nathan Baack 3 3-3 12, Caleb Jensen 2 0-2 4, Jake Scott 2 4-4 10, Vince Guthrie 5 3-5 13, Jack Berry 1 0-0 3. Totals 21 13-20 63.
ERIE (47)
Callen Gebhardt 1 2-2 5, Chris Smith 1 2-4 5, Garrett Owen 5 4-5 15, Braylon Englehart 1 0-0 2, Patrick Hahn 5 3-5 13, Zayd Jimenez 1 4-4 6, Tyler Firebaugh 0 0-0 0. Totals 14 15-20 47.
3-point field goals — Cherokee Trail (8): Nathan Baack 3, Jake Scott 2, Jack Berry, Chris Davis, Jordan Mitchell. Erie (3): Callen Gebhardt, Garrett Owen, Chris Smith. Total fouls — Cherokee Trail 18, Erie 23. Fouled out — None. Technical fouls — None.
