In all, 96 players qualified in singles positions, and 128 qualified as part of a doubles team.
The 5A tournament is set to be held at Gates Tennis Center in Denver, and 4A is slated for Pueblo City Park.
Play in both tournaments begins on Thursday and runs through Saturday.
All matches begin at 9 a.m. each of the three days, with the first two rounds being played on Thursday. Semifinals are Friday morning, with playback rounds immediately following. Championship matches are scheduled for 9 a.m. on Saturday.
CHSAANow will have complete coverage of both tournaments on all three days, including live results from all matches.
GREENWOOD VILLAGE — It’s a big week in Bruinland as multiple Cherry Creek teams will be playing in some of the biggest games of their season.
The Bruins volleyball team might be hitting one of their toughest weeks of the season. The Bruins (11-2 overall) will play two top class programs this week in Arapahoe (11-2) and Grandview (7-6). Arapahoe will be the game to watch as it will be a battle for the top spot in the Centennial League.
“(We) are preparing for the games by working really hard at our practices and pushing to get as ready as we can for both,” setter Daisy Schultz said, “It’s really exciting for us to get to play at home during this week and have our schools supporting us, but it’s also a busy week and tough to get through while still staying focused on what we need to do for our games.”
The pressure is definitely great this week for the Bruins as these games will greatly effect the aforementioned Centennial League standings, and the regional seedings.
“It adds quite a bit of pressure,” Schultz continued, “These are possibly our hardest and most important league matches. We’ve been doing are best to take everything game by game and stay focused on one thing at a time.”
Also having a very important week is one of the greatest dynasties in Colorado sports, the Cherry Creek boys tennis team. Cherry Creek will host Region 1.
Other teams in this region include Denver South, Northglenn, Columbine, Rampart, Greeley West and Ponderosa.
“I expect a lot from myself, and a lot from my team. (I) really hope we can go in and get that W,” senior doubles player Jacob Bendalin said. “Hopefully our (previous) success can translate to state.”
The Bruins are the defending Class 5A Champions and have high expectations. The Bruins have competed in 12 tournaments or duals and have lost none of them so far.
(Renee Bourcier/CHSAANow.com)
Boys soccer will face a tough task this week and an important one after going 0-3 in their out-of-state tournament in Missouri. Like volleyball, its first battle will also be for the top spot in the Centennial League with rival Arapahoe.
“We need to move on, train hard and get ready for our big game against Arapahoe and keep our heads in the game” sophomore Cesar Martinez said. “Even though our team is high in the (CHSAANow.com) rankings, we can’t underestimate our opponents. We also can’t feel pressured and nervous at this time. We need to stay calm and composed and work hard.”
Arapahoe will not be the only test the Bruins will face this week. They will come back the very next day and face out-of-state opponent St. Ignatius (Ohio). The Wildcats are the No. 2 team in the state of Ohio and the No. 12 team in the nation right now.
Ethan Hillis is a comeback story, in a sense. It’s not really that he has something to prove to himself or others, but Cherry Creek boys tennis’ No. 1 singles player rejoined the team as a senior after taking a one-year hiatus from tennis last season.
“And he is one of the No. 1 contenders for the 5A No. 1 singles title, with all due respect to the other competitors,” second-year Cherry Creek tennis head coach Art Quinn said.
Hillis, one of Colorado’s top high school tennis players since his freshman year, hasn’t competed in a Bruins tennis shirt since his undefeated sophomore campaign came to an abrupt and brutal halt in the 2014 No. 1 singles final.
Fairview senior Ignatius Castelino won the championship 1-6, 7-6 (1), 7-5; the game, set and match were ultimately won after a point violation. The official penalized Hillis for slamming his racket into the ground, and he had already received a warning in the first set.
“I deserved it, but it probably helped more than it hurt in the long term,” Hillis said. “Unfortunately, I lost one match my sophomore year, and it was that one. I keep it in mind now when I’m on the court, and I like to think I control my temper a little better. I don’t want to be remembered for that moment and I don’t think I am anyways.”
Quinn added: “If we didn’t play with emotion, maybe we wouldn’t care.”
Ethan Hillis. (Morgan Dzak/CHSAANow.com)
Hillis said he took a break from tennis for academic reasons, as any high school student can probably relate that junior year is the toughest.
“I always like playing for the team and I really enjoyed it my first two years,” Hillis said. “Last year I didn’t go out for a lot of school-related reasons. I couldn’t afford to take so much time for tennis my junior year, so I took a break from tennis in general. It was mostly academic, and I always wanted to come back. I was pretty disappointed I couldn’t last year.”
And his dedication to school has certainly paid off. Hillis currently maintains a weighted 4.3 grade point average and he scored a 34 on his ACT. “He’s weird-smart,” a Kent Denver dad and friend of Hillis’ said as he walked by.
Hillis will play collegiate tennis at Amherst College: a Division III school in Massachusetts that is consistently in the top-5 in tennis, occasionally falling to the 8 or 9 spot. For a major, Hillis is interested in math, computer science or both.
As far as senior year goes, it’s Hillis’ last hurrah in high school, and he wanted to be part of the tennis team one last time.
“My teammates were pushing me over the summer and texting me telling me to play,” Hillis said. “They missed having me on the team and that was a big part of the reason why I like high school tennis.”
Quinn added it was great to have Hillis back, especially after after he was gone last season.
Aside from the one blemish on his sophomore record at the hands of Castelino, Hillis has been undefeated. He didn’t lose a match his entire freshman season and captured the 2013 No. 3 singles title, and has also been undefeated his senior season as well.
Last Tuesday in a dual meet between the Bruins and Sun Devils, the defending Class 5A team champs against the defending 4A team champs, Hillis beat Kent Denver’s Casey Ross 3-2.
“I always play well against Casey,” Hillis said of his friend.
Kent Denver’s Casey Ross. (Morgan Dzak/CHSAANow.com)
Ross and Hillis are ranked in the United State Tennis Association’s most recent Intermountain boys 18 singles standings as No. 1 and 2, respectively, but they’ve gone back and forth over the years.
Quinn explained that Ross has maintained a higher sectional ranking, but they’ve been head to head as of late, probably going more Ethan’s way.
“Ethan possesses a very strong will power, a very strong mental fortitude, and his physical prowess on the court deals with heavy top spin and crushing depth from ground strokes,” Quinn said. “He’s gotten a lot taller and bigger since his freshman year, and his ability to put physical weight on ball and mental weight on opponent is unrelenting.”
Hillis’ regular season comeback is just about complete, and he has already solidified his place in school history.
“Jeff Zeller, Doug Mayeda, Chad Harris and Ethan Hillis,” longtime Varsity 1 coach Dan Pierce said. “Those are the biggest guys to come through the program in the last 20 years.
Gary Harris, JV assistant coach and father of Chad Harris, added: “I’d put him in the top-10 of all time Creek players.”
And Pierce, who has been coaching Creek for 19 years, agreed: “We haven’t had that dominant of a singles player since Harris.”
Hillis will be 3-for-3 on entering the 5A state tournament undefeated, and he’s ready to make another run at the No. 1 singles title. He’s been there before, and he knows what he must do.
Discovery Canyon’s Nick Lorenz during the 2015 4A state tennis tournament. (Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
In 2014, the Discovery Canyon boys tennis team walked away from the Class 4A state championships scoring a total of zero team points.
Last season, they scored 27. And the Thunder believes it can do better this year.
It’s not hard to see that on the boys tennis scene, Discovery Canyon is quite simply the next big thing. Not bad for a school that only opened back in 2008.
It opened only two years after the club at Flying Horse which is where most of the Thunder’s players grew to love the game and adopt it as their fall sport of choice.
“All of these of these kids that we have had in the program (at the club) are starting to come into high school,” coach Mike Humphrey said. “These are kids that are putting a lot of time in themselves in traveling to tournaments.”
And the results are paying off quickly once those kids are hitting the course.
The Thunder’s top three players all advanced to at least the semifinal matches. Freshman Nick Lorenz came the closest to reaching gold as he fell in the No. 1 singles final match. Kent Denver’s Casey Ross, a junior, got the better of Lorenz 6-3, 6-1 to claim the title.
Looking back on last year’s result, Lorenz knows that there is plenty of work to do both physically and mentally if he wants to stand in the first place spot on the podium.
“Casey’s a really good player too and he’s getting better as well,” Lorenz said. “I know I’m going to have to have the mindset that I can win if I’m going to him.”
But unlike any competition he sees outside of the school season, the results of his matches don’t just factor into his standing, but his teammates’ as well.
The bulk of the Thunder’s team points last year came in all the singles brackets. Dustin Bohuslavschi advanced to the No. 2 singles semis before falling and Tanner Jones made it just as far in the No. 3 singles bracket.
In order for Discovery Canyon to continue it’s upward trend, those three returning players will have to continue their run of success and rely on each other in order to obtain some hardware at the end of the season.
“It’s more pressure than USTA tournaments, which are all individual,” Lorenz said. “But it’s more fun playing for a team.”
Kent Denver has firmly been in control of 4A tennis for the last three seasons. The Sun Devils finished with 89 points last year, 17 better than Colorado Academy who came in second.
Then there was a huge gap for third place as Niwot totaled 35 points. The Thunder finished fourth with their 27, of which 26 came from their singles players.
Discovery Canyon has put itself on the map, and now it’s time to try and earn its place with the state’s top programs.
“The strength of a team is in the depth of a team,” Humphrey said. “It’s getting our doubles players playing more and taking tennis to that next level of what they’re doing now. Just getting those kids to play a little more, getting those touches on the ball so that they’re more adept to playing tennis and being in situations that they usually aren’t in.”
If Humphrey can do that and his singles players can maintain or exceed their current level of success, Colorado high school tennis could find itself in the middle of a nasty Thunderstorm.
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Boys tennis preview
Class 4A
Defending state champion: Kent Denver
Regular season begins: Aug. 18
Regional tournaments: Oct. 8
State tournament: Oct. 13-15, Pueblo City Park Tennis Complex
Returning all-state players: Nick Lorenz, So., Discovery Canyon; Jack Moldenhauer, Jr., Kent Denver; Casey Ross, Sr., Kent Denver; Brendan Schwartz, Sr., Colorado Academy; Garrett Sutter, Sr., Colorado Academy
Class 5A
Defending state champion: Cherry Creek
Regular season begins: Aug. 18
Regional tournaments: Oct. 8
State tournament: Oct. 13-15, Gates Tennis Center in Denver
Returning all-state players: Luca Abbott, Sr., Regis Jesuit; David Glazer, Sr., Denver East; Ryan James, Sr., Cherry Creek; Mitchell Johnson, Jr., Cherry Creek; Ben Murray, Jr., Cherry Creek; Erich Nuss, Sr., Regis Jesuit; Patrick Seby, Jr., Regis Jesuit; Kap Smith, Jr., Boulder
Kent Denver won the 4A boys tennis team championship. (Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
PUEBLO — At the end of the day, the No. 1 singles battle between Kent Denver’s Casey Ross and Discovery Canyon freshman Nick Lorenz meant nothing for the team title. Ross was able to just go out and play himself.
And that he did.
He came away with a 6-3, 6-1 win to take the No. 1 singles championship, just as his teammates helped the Sun Devils come away with their third-straight Class 4A state tennis title.
“It was a really tough match from the start,” Ross said. “Towards the end, once I took control, I was able to use my forehand a little bit better and I was able to step into the court more and take advantage of that.”
At the start of the match, it seemed to shape up as a contest that could find its way to three sets. Neither player could break the other’s serve from the start and they both delivered their share of crowd-pleasing shots.
Holding a 3-2 lead in the first set, Ross was finally able to break Lorenz’s serve to take a 4-2 lead and grasp momentum. Lorenz was able to take one more game, but he couldn’t battle back to take the first set.
(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
With the lead, Ross wanted to capitalize early and hold off any chance for Lorenz to make a comeback.
“I just want to get off the court as fast as possible once I get that lead,” Ross said. “Whatever I have to do, just keeping it solid and always going for my shots; keeping it simple.”
The loss for Lorenz ends an impressive run for his first year at the state tournament. His initial goal was to reach the finals and he knows that he can play at the level he needs to win that final match.
“I’m definitely proud of myself for making it to the finals,” Lorenz said. “I could’ve played better in the finals. I think I could’ve won that match.”
With three more chances to return, Lorenz says that he will return and take that top spot on the podium.
While Ross was working to lock up that No. 1 singles title, his dad and coach, Randy Ross, was busy running around the various courts and coaching the other teams he had playing. Kent Denver and Colorado Academy were squaring off in every final match with the exception of No. 1 singles and the Sun Devils only needed one win to take the team title.
Kevin Adams and Jack Moldenhauer were the first Kent Denver players to report their win. That championship in No. 1 doubles gave the Sun Devils the 4A team title.
“It’s hard to cover all these positions,” Randy Ross said afterwards. “I’ve got Casey that I have an emotional attachment to and I also have an emotional attachment to all the seniors that have been on this team for four years.”
When the elder Ross thinks about all the state championship teams he’s presided over, this one will hold a special place in his heart because three of the Sun Devils champions — including Casey — went undefeated through the entire season.
After the championship ceremony, Randy gathered his team for what has become a tradition following a state title win. Each player was given a snip at Randy’s mustache until it was shaven off and the kids were all given buzzcuts in honor of once again finishing their season as the best in the state.
Boulder’s Kap Smith on the No. 1 singles title. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
DENVER — Things weren’t looking good for Kap Smith.
After losing the first set 7-5, the Boulder High School sophomore trailed Cherry Creek’s Ryan James 4-0 in the second set of their Class 5A state championship No. 1 singles match Saturday morning.
It was then that a frustrated Smith, in returning balls to James for service, lobbed them a little too high. The chair umpire docked Smith a point for ball abuse.
“That really got me pumped up,” he said.
In addition to providing motivation, the incident helped Smith change his focus against James as he came back to win the next six games and take the set, then held off James’ furious third-set rally to win the match 5-7, 6-4, 6-4.
Smith had a few unforced errors, but not many, through the first set and a half. Through the remainder of the match, he had hardly any.
“(James) hits more winners (than I do) but he makes more mistakes,” Smith said.
(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
So he changed his tactics to force James into hitting errors, including on match point.
When does the quest begin for Smith’s second state title?
“Tomorrow,” he said.
He thought about it again and decided, “Probably Monday.”
Smith was not the only Boulder singles player to win a state title. Teammate Jackson Hawk, a senior, took the crown at No. 2 singles, defeating Charlie Franks of Denver East 6-1, 6-2.
Cherry Creek’s Mitch Johnson earned the No. 3 singles titles as a sophomore, downing another Boulder player, Cutter Esson, 6-4, 7-6.
Cherry Creek also won the No. 3 doubles title, Ben Murray and Spencer Buted taking a hard-fought 7-6, 7-6 victory over Evan Nuss and Kosta Garger of Regis Jesuit.
Regis did win state titles at No. 1 and No. 2 doubles, Steven Bummer and Erich Nuss earning the former and Patrick Seby and Luca Abbott the latter.
The No. 4 doubles title went to David Glazer and Will Burton of Denver East.
With wins at No. 3 singles and doubles, Cherry Creek, which wrapped up the team title on Friday, won the tournament with 75 points, outdistancing second-place Fairview by 28 points. Denver East was third with 46.
The title is Cherry Creek’s fifth-straight, and 20th in 22 seasons.
Cherry Creek won a fifth-consecutive state championship. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
