AURORA | Last season, Colbey Ross won Colorado’s Gatorade Player of the Year while coming a step short of winning a state championship.
This season, the Eaglecrest senior guard ended up with both shiny prizes.
Just over a week after helping lead his team to the Class 5A boys state basketball championship to complete a 24-4 season, Ross received the Gatorade award as the state’s top boys basketball player for the second straight season. Ross played in all 28 games for the Raptors this past season and led the team in scoring (18.4 points), assists (5.0), rebounds (4.9) and steals (2.4) per game.
On Saturday, Ross played in the second A-Town All-Star Game — with retiring Eaglecrest coach John Olander on the bench coaching his victorious Team West — and the Pepperdine University signee is a selection for the upcoming Show all-star game as well.
“Colbey plays hard and has a high basketball IQ,” Cherokee Trail coach Morgan Gregory said in a release. “He understands the flow of the game and when he needs to be aggressive for his team, along with knowing when to get others involved.”
In addition to his play on the court, Ross has a 3.51 GPA and he has volunteered locally as part of a fundraising campaign to benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation as a youth basketball coach.
Ross’ win gives Aurora a sweep of the Colorado Gatorade Player of the Year awards for boys and girls basketball, as he joins three-time winner Michaela Onyenwere of Grandview — who also won a state championship — as this year’s winners.
Ross joins Regis Jesuit graduate Bud Thomas — who went on to play for Mercer — as Aurora’s two-time winners of the Gatorade award in boys basketball, while he joins Ben Baum (a recent inductee into the Eaglecrest Athletics & Activities Hall of Fame) as Eaglecrest’s second all-time winner. Baum won the award in 1993 and went on to go to an NCAA Final Four with Oklahoma State.
In his final season, Ross helped Eaglecrest handle the spotlight as a favored team returning many players from a squad that lost to Centennial League rival Overland in last season’s state championship game, as well as manage the emotions of the final season for Olander on the bench.
The Raptors played fantastic team basketball and Ross often closed out games or hit big shots when they were needed, such as a cold-blooded three-pointer at the end of the third quarter in the 5A state championship game against George Washington to give his team a lead going into the fourth quarter.
In an overtime semifinal the previous night against Rock Canyon, Ross scored six of his team’s seven points in overtime in a 61-60 victory.
Ross regularly asserted that he was “made for these moments” and lived up to that billing.
He is now eligible for the Gatorade National Player of the Year award to be announced later this month.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter: @aurorasports. FB: Aurora Prep Sentinel