ARVADA >> Gritty. Determined. Perseverance. Any of those superlatives could be used to describe the Erie girls basketball team for the 2024-25 season.

All of them would fit.

And even though host Arvada West bookended a season-opening win over the Tigers with an eventual 53-46 victory in the second round of the Class 6A tournament, head coach Tyler Cerveny’s squad exhibited a never-say-quit attitude. That was somewhat Erie’s mantra all season long.

“What they’ve done all year from practice to games, to wins to losses, these girls love basketball. They show up and play hard every day,” Cerveny said. “As a coach, you can’t leave the gym feeling angry when you lose a game when they left it all on the floor. That’s what they do. For a bunch of young kids, they’ve got a lot of grit.”

Granted, Arvada West was the No. 9 seed for a reason. After all, the Wildcats were 20-3 — now 21-3 — for a reason. But Erie not only improved but elevated its game since that 35-25 loss on Dec. 3.

“The score was 10 points last time. I didn’t feel like it was close, but we legitimately had a chance to win this one in the fourth quarter this time,” Cerveny said.

The 24th-seeded Tigers (15-10), who had won six of their past seven contests, opened up an early 9-4 lead before Arvada West closed the first stanza on an 11-0 run to never trail again. That’s not to say that Erie didn’t make the Wildcats sweat, though — especially down the stretch. Because it certainly did.

Erie’s matchup zone held Wildcats’ leading scorer Saylor Swanson in check. Swanson entered the game averaging 12.2 points per game, but she was contained to just seven points Saturday.

With Swanson held in check, Avery Harrison stepped up for the Wildcats, scoring 11 of her game-high 17 points in the second quarter as Arvada West opened up a 28-22 halftime cushion.

When the matchup zone wasn’t enough, the Tigers’ full-court pressure and trapping defense spearheaded a furious fourth-quarter rally.

When Juliet Slater scored the last of her team-high 16 points with 31 seconds left, Erie (15-9) narrowed a 13-point deficit to three at 49-46. But four late Arvada West free throws sealed the Tigers’ fate and will send the Wildcats to the Sweet 16, where they’ll face No. 8 Denver East, a 54-49 winner over Eaglecrest on Saturday.

The loss, however, didn’t quash Erie’s belief in one another.

“This team is so tough. They’re some of the toughest girls that I know,” Slater said. “We’re fighting for each other, always.”

“From that first game, we learned that they were really aggressive and a physical team, and that we were going to have come in here and play super, super hard to beat them and get close with them,” said Sophie Husk, who was the only other player in double figures with 11 points. “I think that’s what we did today.”

Not bad for a team littered with underclassmen, with just one senior — Jocelyn Klickna — on the roster, and who played all season without Reagyn Allen, who led the team in field goal percentage a season ago before missing this year with a torn ACL.

“If you had told me coming into the season that they would get a first-round bye and have 15 wins, I would’ve told you that you were crazy,” Cerveny said. “Credit to the girls, to their families on how committed they are to our team. I can’t say enough good things about them.