After flying high against the Alameda Pirates last Wednesday, the Evergreen Cougars came back down to earth. Evergreen took a 77-69 hit to the loss column at the hands of Dakota Ridge on Friday. Despite running the score up even higher than they did in their last game last Wednesday (60), Evergreen still had to take the loss.
When it comes to explaining why Evergreen lost, one person who can't be blamed is Lukas McCanna. Despite the final result, he dropped a double-double on 19 points and 11 rebounds. McCanna continues to roll, besting his previous point total in each of the last three games he's played. Another player making a difference was Drew Yager, who scored 17 points.
Multiple players turned in solid performances to lead Dakota Ridge to victory, but perhaps none more so than Nathan Esau, who scored 18 points along with six rebounds. That's the first time this season that Esau scored 15 or more points. Ethan Berninger was another key contributor, scoring 20 points along with six assists and five rebounds.
Evergreen has been struggling recently, as they've lost eight of their last ten matches, which put a noticeable dent in their 4-11 record this season. As for Dakota Ridge, the win was the sixth in a row for them, bringing their record for this year to 10-4.
Both teams will have to hit the road in their upcoming games. Evergreen will challenge Golden at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday. As for Dakota Ridge, they will head out on the road to take on Littleton at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday. Littleton will have to bring their A-game into this one, as they are staring down a pretty big deficit in the MaxPreps Colorado Rankings (they are ranked 222nd, while Dakota Ridge is ranked 44th).
