By the time Littleton started to turn it on, Chatfield had already burnt out any hopes the Lions had of advancing to the next round in the Class 5A girls basketball state tournament.

While Littleton came out nervous and timid, the Chargers attacked early with a tight defense on the way to a 54-34 home win.

The Chargers will play Arapahoe (19-3) on Friday.

"In that first quarter, we just played really, really good defense and that helped a lot because then we started hitting our shots," said Chatfield senior guard Dilan Sutliff, who scored eight of her 12 points in the first quarter.

"What we try to do is play better defense more than anything else, so that really helps us with everything else in the game."

The Lions (11-13) came into the game without a lot of confidence after only recording one win in their last eight games.

And they took themselves out of the game early, only scoring one basket in the first quarter and falling to a 21-point deficit halfway through the second quarter.

But Littleton climbed back into the game to come within 11 points at halftime, only to let the Chargers (12-11) continue firing, putting up nearly twice as many shot attempts.

"We didn't come ready - they came more intense than we did . . . they came ready to play and we let them get in our heads," Littleton senior Tanecia Quillen said.

"We let the nerves get the best of us right off the bat.

"We came this far, and to stop here at Chatfield when we knew we could do better is very disappointing."

The Chargers, who were strong through the middle of the season with a stretch of winning 7-of-8, finished the regular season losing three of their last four games. So Sutliff said a win like Wednesday's will only give them more confidence as they move on.

"We're a lot more excited about it because we know now that we can play well when it matters," Sutliff said. "We're finally starting to get our momentum back. We learned tonight that when we play hard, we can pretty much play with anyone."

Littleton 2 15 5 12 - 34

Chatfield 12 16 14 12 - 54

L-Tanecia Quillen 2 3-4 7; Madison Craver 3 5-6 11; Emma Neal 2 0-0 5; Ashley Gruber 1 0-0 2; Stephanie James 2 0-0 5; Alyssa Orndorff 2 0-0 4. Totals 12 8-10 34.

C-Kate Kurtenbach 3 0-0 8; Natalie Smart 2 0-1 6; Cassandra Hanna 1 0-0 3; Dilan Sutliff 5 0-1 12; Chelsea O'Brien 2 5-6 9; Danae Morton 2 3-3 7; Emily Kotulak 0 2-2 2; Chrissy Armstrong 3 1-2 7. Totals 18 11-15 54.

Three point goals- L, Neal 1, James 1. C, Hanna 1, Kurtenbach 2, Smart 2, Sutliff 2.