After its Friday, Feb. 7 contest against defending 4A state champion Kelly Walsh was postponed due to road conditions, the Evanston High School boys’ basketball team instead traveled to Casper Monday for a rare, early-week game against the Trojans.

Coming off a dominating defensive performance in a 46-34 win at Rock Springs Saturday, the Red Devils (5-12, 3-0 in 4A Southwest) were looking to extend their five-game win streak and announce to the rest of the state that Evanston isn’t a team to be overlooked. Kelly Walsh — ranked No. 5 in the state in 4A —  was able to hold off a late charge by the upstarts from the 4A Southwest to win 61-56, though the Red Devils made them earn it.

“It’s not the only time this year, hopefully, that we’ll be driving to Casper and getting off a bus to play a game,” said EHS head coach Lex Cornia. “I think earlier in the year, that game would have been extended to 16-18 points. That we were able to keep battling back and cut it to two, cut it to four, get it back to five — it shows a lot about how far we’ve come as a team.”

It was a back and forth game from the start, though the Trojans (9-5, 2-1 in 4A Northwest) went on a small run late in the first to take a 17-12 lead. By the half, Kelly Walsh had pushed that lead to 10 at 32-22.

“You look at the wins Kelly Walsh has on their home floor — Cheyenne East, Sheridan, Natrona, Laramie — they play well in that gym,” Cornia said. “We knew we had some disadvantages, but in the end, just go win a basketball game. Play 32 minutes, and you can pull it off.”

If the 10-point deficit at the half bothered Evanston, it didn’t show. The Red Devils came out of the locker room ready to play in the third, outscoring Kelly Walsh 14-9 to cut the lead to four at 41-36. Evanston’s Dawson Crofts had seven of his nine points in the third quarter.

Neither team gave an inch in the fourth quarter, with both teams scoring 20 points. Evanston pulled within three at 55-52 with under a minute to play but were unable to get closer, as the Trojans held on for the 61-56 win.

“I think we beat ourselves a little bit down the stretch,” Cornia said. “Offensive rebounds were a huge factor in that game — we’d do a decent job, and then there’d be two or three possessions where we’d give them extra shots. In their own gym, that’s gonna kill you.”

Despite attracting a lot of attention in the paint, Mason Ellingford still managed to drop 20 points on the Trojans to lead the Red Devils in scoring.

“I think we’ve kind of seen how teams are going to approach Mason [Ellingford],” Cornia explained. “He was doubled a lot — it was really just a physical game. We have to be ready to have some options out of that and get guys ready to shoot. But I think we saw the template of what teams are going to try to do to us going forward.”

Red Devil senior David Baxter finished with 11 points, though he had an off night at the charity stripe, going 4-of-9.

“David Baxter had a nice game, he really started attacking the rim,” Cornia said. “He struggled a bit from the free throw line, but nobody steps up to that line and intends to miss it. Sometimes you just have an off night.”

Crofts netted nine points, followed by Braxton Lind with seven points and Wade Bowen with six.

“I think the kid we’re most happy with is Wade Bowen,” Cornia said. “We saw good things to come from him, and not just defensively. He finished well around the glass, so we were really happy with him.”

Senior point guard Burke Thomas hit a shot from behind the arc to finish with three points, and Cornia said he was pleased with how Thomas ran the offense.

“Burke [Thomas] did a great job, he only had one turnover and eight assists,” Cornia said. “He’s just become very dependable. We’d like to see his shot get going, but if you gotta choose when you’re gonna shoot well and your options are March or February, we’ll take March every time.”

The Red Devils shot 55 percent from the floor Monday night, a number Cornia said he can definitely live with going forward.

“I thought we did a lot better job in transition,” Cornia said. “We got some easy baskets, and earlier in the year, we just had to set and run half-court offenses...We’ve got a lot of pieces, they just didn’t all come together Monday night.”

That said, the fact that his team was able to have an off night and still be in a position to pull the upset at the end is a testament to how far this team has come since its 0-11 start, according to Cornia.

“The fact that we fought back and were one or two plays away from having an opportunity to win it at the end, despite going 8-of-15 from the free throw line on the road, is huge,” he said.

“We clean a few things up, have a few less turnovers, we win that game. I think everyone on our team knows that Kelly Walsh is a team we can go beat.”

Evanston’s busy week continues this weekend, with home games scheduled against Cody (6-8, 2-1 in 4A Northwest) Friday and Riverton (4-12, 0-3 in 4A Northwest) Saturday. Each team will bring a different look to the EHS gymnasium.

“Cody and Riverton are two different styles of teams,” Cornia explained. “Cody just plays incredibly fast — they work very, very hard and they don’t seem to care what the score is. They come at you again and again and again.”

As for Riverton, Cornia said not to be fooled by the Wolverines’ conference record.

“Riverton is more methodical and system-oriented, but they do it very well,” he said. “I know the talk around the state is the only basketball being played is east of Casper. But I think the 4A West is better than it was last year, top to bottom. Regionals [March 5-7 in Evanston] are going to be a crapshoot for everybody.”