FOUNTAIN – After finding the right tempo in the second quarter, Fountain-Fort Carson buried Pomona in a deep enough hole to negate a flat second half and carry the Trojans to a 65-45 win Friday in the second round of the Class 5A state tournament.

“Our defensive intensity picked up a little bit, and we started to force the tempo and kind of played our style instead of theirs,” coach Anthony Ribaudo said of the pivotal quarter.

Watch video highlights from the game.

Leading 14-2 after the first, F-FC got four straight points from senior Martin Thomas before Alex Welsh’s 3-pointer ended a nearly 6-minute scoring drought for the Panthers, whose “meticulous” half-court offense — as described by Ribaudo — struggled against the quick, physical Trojans.

Junior Chris Davis quickly answered with a 3 — the first of 13 straight points for F-FC, which limited Pomona to only four field goals in the first half. Senior Harrison Hunter’s steal and layup capped the run, giving the Trojans a 31-5 lead with 4:02 left in the half.

“We were just trying to push the momentum because we knew they were a half-court team,” Davis said, “and if we got into them, we knew they would get frustrated and start turning over the ball.”

Davis led all scorers with 21 points, Martin finished with 13 and senior Mitchell Lewis added nine for the Trojans (21-3).

Pomona, which trailed 35-10 at halftime, started to solve F-FC’s zone press and outscored the Trojans 23-16 in the third quarter, but only got as close as 16 points in the second half.

Welsh scored 11 of his team-high 18 points in the third for Pomona (15-10).

“In the second half, we got down, our intensity wasn’t as high,” Davis said. “We weren’t working as hard, we just kind of backed off and let them come to us.”

Ribaudo was happy with the win, anyway.

“I think we just played well as a group,” he said. “I think we rotated well defensively, we moved the ball, we executed some of our offensive sets and I just thought we had a pretty good effort.”

F-FC, which received a bye into the second round as the top seed in the region, will play host to fourth-seeded Aurora Central (18-6) on Tuesday.

Vail Alpine skier Lindsey Vonn won a gold medal in the downhill and a bronze in the super-G at the Vancouver Games, helping the Americans claim 37 medals, a record for the most at the Winter Games. The U.S. has 36 medals, but it’s guaranteed another medal Sunday from the men’s ice hockey gold-medal game against Canada. Photo by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Gerry Broome