Drive east and you’ll find it.
Resurrection Christian School sits just off I-25 little less than a mile in a stretch of highway located in somewhat no-man’s land bridging four communities of Northern Colorado.
Technically in Loveland, Rez also pulls from Fort Collins, Windsor, Greeley and the surrounding area, a plain looking building that houses a church, elementary, middle and high school that for most of its short existence has remained in relative anonymity.
It’s common for people who hold no affiliation with the place having no clue where it is, if they know it exists at all. But that’s all starting to change, at the least on an athletic scale.
Over the past four years, one name has done perhaps more than any other to further Resurrection Christian’s reputation.
Tanner Ervin.
“Well it’s changed from people asking ‘Where is Resurrection Christian?’ to ‘Oh yes, he plays for Resurrection Christian,'” RCS basketball coach Bruce Dick said. “That’s kind of been the attitude change from surrounding people in Northern Colorado, and somewhat state-wide.”
As one of Colorado’s most prolific scorers the past two seasons, Ervin’s rise to prominence helped skyrocket a successful, yet relatively unheard of program, into one of the most recognizable and winningest basketball institutions in the state.
Ervin’s difference-making talent of the court earned him 2017 RH all-area boys basketball player of the year honors for the second straight season. Joining him on the all-area team is teammate Michael Stevenson, Thompson Valley’s Justin Wiersema and Jared Kasprzak, Loveland’s Avery Rembao and Mountain View’s Brexton Butcher.
No matter what court he takes, Ervin is immediately judged. Generously listed at 5-feet, 11 inches, and all of it strung out in a slender frame with a baby face to top it off, nothing about him screams elite basketball talent.
True enough, Ervin won’t wow crowds with athletic prowess nor physical stature. You need to watch him play to fully appreciate his ability. And it won’t take long. The kid can ball.
“It was a rocky road at the beginning. I think I was very underrated, even in my sophomore and junior years when I was putting up my career highs,” Ervin said. “I was still being looked at as that 2A player that just was super under the radar and playing bad competition. This year I think I proved I could play with whoever I was on the court with.”
Moving up to 3A this past season, Rez and Ervin both saw an opportunity to prove to some extent it wasn’t a small-classification creation, facing a stiffer schedule, which included 4A programs.
Ervin averaged a career-best 26.4 points per game, fifth-highest in the state, while displaying an all-around game with four assists, 3.5 rebounds and 2.8 steals a contest. But most of all, the Ervin-led Cougars simply won.
RCS lost seven games the season before Ervin. He finished his career with a record of 91-8, two of those losses coming in the state title game to three-time defending champion Sanford, and five of which came his freshman year.
In the three seasons Ervin was the unquestioned top producer for the team, Rez went 73-3, as 60 percent of Dick’s 152 victories at the school came with Ervin leading the way.
“To me it was just to get my name more out there and not be the little guy in 2A anymore, and try to create a name for myself, my team and my school,” Ervin said. “It was an honor to be able to do that with Resurrection Christian, and how it built throughout the years was a lot of fun.”
Primarily sticking to the perimeter thanks to a deadly-accurate shot that saw him become the state’s record holder for most 3-pointers made in a career this season, Ervin was knocked as one-dimensional.
Over the years, as he grew both physically and mentally, Ervin developed an uncanny ability to reach the rim by his senior season, going to the free throw line 90 more times than his junior campaign.
Dick saw his star player more than anyone. He watched him go from a freshman who “looked like a sixth grader” to a complete player, as willing to pass up a shot for a better look by a teammate as he was to go out and drop 30 points.
Even to this day, Dick feels that Ervin is underrated because he’ll never pass the eye test. Ervin is deciding between playing for CSU-Pueblo or Northern Colorado, potentially as a walk-on, a path he likely wouldn’t need to tread were he a bit taller or heavier or athletically gifted.
Yet there will always be one thing nobody can take away from him — Resurrection Christian is on the map.
“Tanner just put a dimension into our basketball program that had not been there yet, and accelerated our climb into an upper-tier basketball program,” Dick said. “He’s certainly been a difference maker in many ways for us.
“What he’s created has been terrific for our younger players, and we’re certainly not going to take any backward steps now.”
Butcher — Mountain View’s junior led the Lions in every category, averaging 11 points per game to go with 3.7 rebounds and 3.1 assists per contest, while shooting 52 percent from the field and 43 percent from behind the arc.
Kasprzak — One of the few traditional big men in the area, Thompson Valley’s junior led the area with 53 offensive rebounds and an average of 6.3 boards per game to go with 10.3 points per contest and a healthy 55 percent shooting percentage from the field.
Stevenson — A true point guard, Resurrection Christian’s senior led the area with 5.4 assists per game and 2.9 steals a night. He also averaged 14.7 points per game on 51 percent shooting as well as 3.8 boards per contest.
Rembao — It was a sophomore who provided Loveland its main weapon, averaging 14.3 points per contest in addition to 6.3 rebounds and two assists a game, tops in all categories for the Indians.
Wiersema — Becoming a do-it-all force, Thompson Valley’s junior was second in the area with 15.1 points per game by shooting an area-best 64 percent from the field, while also leading the area at seven boards per contest to go with 1.9 assists a night.
Cris Tiller: 970-669-5401, tillerc@reporter-herald.com or twitter.com/cristiller
