By Taylor Lee
Berthoud Recorder

The Berthoud Spartans’ boys’ basketball team knew it would have a tough game ahead of it when the Niwot Cougars came to town. And for the first half, many people thought Niwot had the game won from the start.And with Berthoud junior Joel Maly and senior Ryan Barron scoring the Spartans only points in the second quarter, those same people had reason to believe that. But the Cougars’ 50-48 win Thursday night at Berthoud High School was anything but a cakewalk.

Niwot led 37-22 at halftime thanks to a lackluster second period for Berthoud.

“We had a slow start,” said Barron, who finished with 15 points. “But we had a great second half. We ran our play at the end and got exactly what we wanted.. We just couldn’t finish it.”

The Spartans started their second-half rally by scoring the first 10 points of the third quarter. With back-to-back assists from Maly and Jeff Shields to Graham Shaw, Berthoud had closed the gap to 37-32.

After Shields cut the gap to one, Niwot’s Andrew Guido was quick to respond with another two points for his team. Maly hit one of two free throws to cut Berthoud’s deficit to two. After a Jeff Roueche basket gave the Cougars a four-point lead, Maly hit two free throws to set up the closing scenario.

With the final seconds counting down, Barron took one last shot — a 3-pointer to win the game. His attempt fell short and Maly, who was quick to rebound, pushed the ball back up as quickly as he could. Unfortunately, his shot, which fell short anyway, was after the buzzer and wouldn’t have counted even if he had made it.

“That last shot, when Ryan shot for the 3, I thought that the buzzer was going to sound. So I rebounded as quickly as possible, and I regret missing it,” Maly said.

Maly led the Spartans with 16 points. Guido scored 14 and Roueche added 13 for Niwot.