- The knock on Wheat Ridge boys’ basketball over the past couple seasons has been they cannot beat the elite teams.

That all changed as the Farmers beat the definition of an elite team in D’Evelyn in their 69-60 victory Tuesday at Wheat Ridge High School.

The loss was the first league loss for D’Evelyn in three years and even though the Jaguars still won the 4A Jeffco league title, it was the Farmers who felt like champs on Tuesday night.

D’Evelyn was playing without one of their studs as junior Grant Witherspoon was sidelined with a concussion.

But it might not have mattered anyway because Wheat Ridge had it rolling behind senior Stefan Hackethal’s 22 points, 10 rebound and four assists night.

And Hackethal had plenty of help. It took a total team effort to hold off the Jaguars who refused to go away late in the game, even when it looked inevitable the Farmers were going to win the game.

“That was a big win for us,” Wheat Ridge coach Tommy Dowd said. “I know they haven’t had a league loss in a while and it had been a long time since we had such a big win.”

Wheat Ridge junior Willis Harris had a monster stat line of seven points, nine rebounds and seven blocked shots, and junior Vedin Kozic had 15 points and six rebounds.

Without Witherspoon in the lineup for D’Evelyn senior Brian Smith shined and nearly helped his shorthanded team to a gritty road win. Smith had 19 points on 7-for-11 shooting.

In addition, senior Ty McGee had 21 points and four rebounds for the Jaguars.

D’Evelyn actually led after the first quarter but Wheat Ridge outscored the Jaguars 20-10 in the second quarter and took the lead which they never gave up the rest of the way.

The victory for Wheat Ridge (10-13, 7-7 in 4A Jeffco) was their fourth straight but they did lose to Golden 67-63 on Thursday.

The Jaguars (18-5, 13-1 in 4A Jeffco) beat Arvada 90-48 on Thursday night, sealing the 4A Jeffco league championship.