Douglas County High School has the 10th-ranked boys basketball team in Colorado, according to the Jan. 3 CHSAANow.com poll.

However, Huskies coach Clay Comstock admits that he didn’t know how good this season’s team could be.

“It is the unselfishness of this group because they haven’t really played together that much up to this point,” said Comstock. “We had a lot of seniors graduate last year so this is pretty much a brand-new team with some new players that don’t have a ton of varsity experience.

“You never know what you are going to get out there on the floor but the product has been nice so far with the unselfishness, the cohesiveness and team basketball. It doesn’t really surprise me just how well we’ve looked at times.”

Douglas County raised its record to 9-1 on Jan. 4 with a 70-34 non-league victory over Pine Creek.

The Huskies wrapped up the win over the Eagles with a dominating second-half performance. Douglas County outscored the visitors 38-12 in the second half and held a 15-0 advantage over Pine Creek in the fourth quarter.

“Our defense can really pressure when we are locked in mentally,” added Comstock. “A game like this after the winter break was absolutely good. Tonight was actually a pretty clean effort. I expected a little more rusty play. But the overall efficiency and execution, I thought we did both.”

Senior Jaeton Hackley scored 16 points for the Huskies and had five assists to go along with three steals. Jaheim Hall had 15 points and Ty Nettles, a 5-10 senior, finished with 14 points and three steals.

“We were a little rusty at the beginning but we picked it up in the second half and played as a team,” said Nettles. “We can get something out of this game, just making sure we run our sets and not doing things we don’t do and making sure we play our game no matter what the score is.

`We took a tough loss against (Denver) East. We learned we can’t play one-on-one, we have to play strong with the ball and not have turnovers.”

Fourth-ranked Denver East handed the Huskies their only loss so far this season with an 87-50 victory on Dec. 18.

Douglas County traveled to George Washington for a Jan. 11 game and will open Continental League play on Jan. 14 against top-ranked ThunderRidge.

“East took it to us,” said Comstock. “Some of that inexperience from our younger guys, you saw it that night. They exposed us in some ways and we did not come ready to play. I don’t believe you will see it again. We learned a lot in that game.

“The league is going to be very tough. How we handle adversity against the better teams will be a key. And just overall being a tough team. Tough teams win in this sport and our league is so competitive that each night you have to bring it.”