Highland watched a 16-point lead nearly evaporate on Friday, but the Huskies came up with defensive stops in the final minute and held on for a 58-54 win at Lone Tree. 

The Huskies led 52-36 early in the fourth quarter, but the Lions cut that lead to 56-54 on Cade Shield’s 3-pointer in the final minute. Lone Tree had a few opportunities to tie the game, but the Huskies kept them from getting a shot off and Trevor McFarland sealed the win at the free throw line. 

“We have an athletic group of kids, we just sometimes don’t play the smartest,” Highland coach Bill Zywiec said. “There late in the game we went back to man to man, we were just able to stay with our guy. We were talking about switching all those screens and I didn’t want to give them anything open since they just hit a couple threes on us on the 2-3.”

Tristan Stokes scored six of his team-high 15 points in the fourth quarter to help the Huskies escape with a win. He also had eight rebounds, seven steals and four assists. 

Aiden Forbes scored 16 points to lead the Lions, who scored a season-high point total and shot a season-best 41 percent from the floor. 

Forbes hit a 3-pointer during Lone Tree’s 18-4 fourth-quarter run. 

“I think we had better movement offensively, our guards that are better job of driving and kicking and our guards did a pretty good job of getting the ball in the post,” Lone Tree coach Tom Squiers said. “I thought our shot selection got better. That’s all we can do right now is work to get better. And I thought tonight we made some we made some steps forward.”

Lone Tree trailed just 9-6 in the first quarter when McFarland stole the ball and scored to start an 11-0 run. 

Forbes scored seven points in the second quarter as the Lions cut the lead to 28-21 at halftime.  

“I thought early we came out with a lot of energy,” Zywiec said. “We wanted to run man to man and it looked fine early, but we picked up some early fouls and that kind of changed the tempo for us you know.

“I thought Lone Tree played hard the entire game and they were able to hit some outside shots and get it inside when they needed to.”

Alex Viner had seven steals and three assists. Shield was 2-4 from the 3-point line for 11 points. Adam Knock had 11 points, six rebounds, three assists and three steals. Tyler Bell had 10 points and 12 rebounds. 

The Lions did better job of taking care of the basketball and limiting second chance opportunities for Highland in the second half. 

“I thought we did a better job rebounding,” Squiers said. “In the first half we gave up way too many offensive rebounds. I just told our guys at halftime they had to get physical. And I thought we did a better job of that.”

Chase Shultz finished with 12 points and six rebounds for Highland. Connor Grinstead had 10 points and six rebounds. McFarland had eight points and eight boards and Brenton Bonebrake scored seven.