Noah Romero of Alamosa works some nifty ball handling skills against Mario Espinoza (3) during Alamosa's district semifinal victory on Feb. 22. (Courier photo by Stephen Jiron)

ALAMOSA — This Friday the 3A State Championship of Colorado Basketball kicks off. Of the four teams from the San Luis Valley to make it to 3A’s state championship tournament, Alamosa High School’s boys are one of them.  

Alamosa closed the regular season with a 16-2 record, of the two losses the first came against the number seventh RPI ranked Faith Christian and the second came in a hard fought IML battle with Centauri.

The best scoring average in Alamosa belongs to senior Noah Romero. Romero is currently netting 11.4 points per game and shoots an adjusted field goal percentage of 45 percent in recorded games. Angelo Ramirez anchors Alamosa down low with 182 total rebounds while also being quite apt at scoring himself. Ramirez has collected 215 points over the course of the season and owns all five of Alamosa’s double-doubles.

One would be remiss if they discussed the Mean Moose without mentioning Ry Adams. Adams lives outside the arc and has built a nice existence. So far this season he has been good for 221 points and of those, 171 were banked from downtown. Adams leads Alamosa in long distance shooting percentage hitting 37 percent. (min. 20 att.)

The Moose entered the district playoffs with a first round bye. After defeating Montezuma-Cortez handily they would advance to the district championship against Bayfield, a game they would lose. The loss didn’t hurt Alamosa as their RPI still floated them to a higher seed than Bayfield for the state tournament.

The second seeded Alamosa boys’ squad will face off with number 31 Cedaredge. The Cedaredge didn’t field a particularly impressive record finishing 9-12. Nor did the Bruins manage very well in their own district finishing 2-7 in the Western Slope.  What they do have is a strong shooter in senior Peter Carlson.

At 6’7” Carlson is a jack-of-all-trades for Cedaredge. Carlson typically leads the Bruins in scoring with 18.2 points per game.  Carlson is also 12th in the state in rebounds per game pulling down 12.1 per game and second in the state in blocks denying 4.6 shots per game. All that cleaning boards, blocking and scoring avails Carlson to a wealth of double-doubles (DD) and triple-doubles (TD). Carlson owns 13 of the Bruin’s 16 DDs and all three TDs. While basketball remains a team sport Alamosa will undoubtedly be devoting most of their efforts to silencing Carlson come Friday night at 5:30 p.m..

With a win Alamosa will face the other half of their quadrant, the winner of Colorado Springs Christian and Grand Valley on the following night at Alamosa High School.