The following are the playoff formats and sites for Season D sports. State titles are slated to be awarded in girls tennis, boys and girls lacrosse, boys swimming and diving, boys and girls track and field, girls soccer, and baseball. Finally, boys volleyball will crown its first ever CHSAA state champion on June 26.

“We are excited to culminate all 31 CHSAA-sanctioned activities and athletics for the 2020-2021 competitive year with Season D championships,” said CHSAA Commissioner Rhonda Blanford-Green.

 

Baseball

Class 1A

Districts Completed – June 12

Seeding Meeting – June 13

Regional Tournaments – June 19

Semifinals/Finals – June 23 – University High School, Greeley

Format: 12 teams to regionals; top two from each district and the remaining two by RPI. District champions will be seeded by RPI 1-5, with the top four serving as regional hosts. The fifth district champion will be seeded fifth. The remaining teams will be seeded by order of RPI, avoiding first-round district matchups.

 

Class 2A

Regular Season Ends – June 12

Seeding Meeting – June 13

Regional Tournaments – June 15

Quarterfinals/Semifinals – June 19 – Runyon Complex, Pueblo

Championship Game – June 26 – Runyon Complex, Pueblo

Format: 24 teams to regionals based on RPI. Single elimination

 

Class 3A

Regular Season Ends – June 12

Seeding Meeting – June 13

Regional Tournaments – June 14

3A Games 1-11 – June 18-19 – Site 1 – Frederick High School/Site 2 – Niwot High School

3A Games 12-15 – June 25-26 – Frederick High School

Format: 24 teams to regionals based on RPI with eight regional winners advancing to double elimination

 

Class 4A

Regular Season Ends – June 12

Seeding Meeting – June 13

Regional Tournaments – June 14

4A Games 1-6 – June 18 – Runyon Baseball Complex, Pueblo

4A Games 7-11 – June 19 – Rawlings Field, CSU-Pueblo

4A Games 12-15 – June 25-26 – Runyon Baseball Complex, Pueblo

Format: 24 teams to regionals based on RPI with eight regional winners advancing to double elimination

 

Class 5A

Regular Season Ends – June 12

Seeding Meeting – June 13

Regional Tournaments – June 14

Games 1-11 – June 18-19 – Site 1 Cherry Creek High School/Site 2 – Eaglecrest High School

Games 12-15 – June 24-25 – Keli MacGregor Field @ Coca-Cola All-Star Park, Lakewood

Format: 24 teams to regionals based on RPI with eight regional winners advancing to double elimination

 

Girls Golf

Regional Tournaments – June 7-11

State Tournament – June 21-22

3A – Elmwood Golf Course, Pueblo

4A – Common Ground Golf Course, Aurora

5A – City Park Golf Course, Denver

Format: 36 holes, stroke play, plus team championship

 

Boys Lacrosse

June 12 – Season completed

June 13 – State pairings/seedings announced

June 15 – 4A/5A First Round Games (higher seed hosts)

June 17 – 4A/5A Quarterfinal Games (higher seed hosts)

June 19 – 4A/5A Semifinal Games – Englewood High School Stadium

June 22 – 4A/5A Championship Games – Englewood High School Stadium

Format: 12-team bracket, single elimination

 

Girls Lacrosse

June 15 – Season Completed

June 17 – 4A/5A First Round Games (higher seed hosts)

June 19 – 4A/5A Quarterfinal Games (higher seed hosts)

June 21 – 4A/5A Semifinal Games – 4A at Shea Stadium, Highlands Ranch, 5A at Echo Park Stadium, Parker

June 23 – 4A/5A Championship Games – Legacy Stadium, Aurora

Format: 12-team bracket, single elimination

 

Girls Soccer

June 12 – Season Completed

June 13 – State pairings/seedings announced

June 15 – 5A First Round Games (higher seed hosts)

June 16 – 3A/4A First Round Games (higher seed hosts)

June 18 – 5A Quarterfinal Games (higher seed hosts)

June 19 – 2A, 3A, 4A Quarterfinal Games (higher seed hosts)

June 23 – Semifinal Games

2A – Home Sites

3A – Stutler Bowl, Aurora

4A – Frederick High School

5A – Englewood High School Stadium

June 26 – Championship Games – Colorado Switchbacks Weidner Field, Colorado Springs

Format: 2A 8-team bracket, single elimination; 3A, 4A, 5A 16-team bracket, single elimination

 

Boys Swimming & Diving

June 19 – Season completed

June 24 – 5A State Meet – Veterans Memorial Aquatics Center, Thornton

June 25 – 4A State Meet – Veterans Memorial Aquatics Center, Thornton

Format: 30 qualifiers (plus ties) per event for timed finals. State qualifiers based on time from the regular season. Maximum of four entries per team for each event.

 

Girls Tennis

June 5 – Regionals Completed

June 11-12 – State Championships

3A – Memorial Park, Colorado Springs

4A – Pueblo City Courts, Pueblo

5A – Gates Tennis Center, Denver

Format: 16-player brackets, single elimination tournament. No third/fourth place match will be played.

 

Boys & Girls Track & Field

June 24, 25, 26 – Jefferson County Stadium, Lakewood

Format: In 1A, nine qualifiers in most events and 12 in the 800 meters, 1600 meters, 3200 meters, 4X800 relay, and 10 in each field event. In 2A, 3A, 4A and 5A, there will be 18 qualifiers in each event. All based on MaxPreps rankings.

State Meet Schedule

 

Boys Volleyball

June 12 – Season Completed

June 19 – Regionals Completed

June 21 – State Bracket announced

June 25-26 – State Championships – Rock Canyon High School, Highlands Ranch

Format: 8 teams advance to state from regionals, single elimination bracket

COLORADO SPRINGS — Discovery Canyon’s Emily Cheng felt like so many putts could’ve dropped her at the Country Club of Colorado. The Pete Dye course is a tough place to putt as it is so when so many short or mid-range putts aren’t falling, it can make for a long day.

Instead of fretting over it, she decided to just sink a long birdie putt on 17. Her tee shot carried to the front of the green giving an uphill look with a slight break toward the water that’s on the north side of hole. Pueblo South’s Zoey Rodriguez missed the green as she clung to a one-shot lead. But she couldn’t scramble for par while Cheng dropped her putt center-cup for birdie.

That turn of events allowed Cheng to card a two-over-par 73 to win the individual Class 4A Region 1 championship. Her round also paced the Thunder to a team title, a title that Cheng gets to share with her sister, Christina, who finished with a 77.

“I think we’re heading to a team dinner (to celebrate),” Cheng said. “I love playing with my sister. We share so much because of golf and I love my team too. Everyone on there is my best friend.”

The key to her round was never letting a bad situation get worse. She made birdie on the par five second hole and gave two strokes back before making the turn. She made bogeys on six and nine to go out in 37. She held a one-stroke lead over Rodriguez on the ninth tee, but that bogey put them both on top of the leaderboard at the turn.

Cheng’s third bogey of the day came on 12 then three-putted for bogey on 14. And that was enough mistakes for the day. Cheng’s tee shot on 16 was perfect and her approach gave her a short birdie putts, which she just missed.

Cheng tosses a dart at the flag on 16. @ThndrSports #copreps pic.twitter.com/CB1vWzLw3v

— Daniel Mohrmann (@DanMohrmann) June 9, 2021

“I knew I had to cut (my drive) a little bit because of the fairway looked,” Cheng said. “I could’ve used a fairway wood but driver was more comfortable and I hit it perfectly and had about 80 yards into the green.”

Rodriguez had built a two-shot lead after making a birdie on 15, but missed the green on 16. She ended up making her only double-bogey of the day there and put Chen within one stroke heading to 17.

That’s when Cheng turned the tables.

“I’ve never been put in that position before in golf,” Cheng said. “I hit a good putt; right where I wanted it to.”

Overall, the Thunder had three of the top five finishers as Christina Cheng shot 77 and Lauren Jaworowski shot 80. Mena Song-Lew’s 91 kept her in the top 10. After missing out on the entire season last year, it was a great way for the Thunder to head into the 4A state tournament at CommonGround in under two weeks.

“For them it’s everything,” coach Mark Liggett said. “They worked hard during COVID and they’ve worked hard all year. Now they just go out and have fun.”

Discovery Canyon claimed the team title and Durango took the other team qualifying spot. Lilly Tichi was the top player for the Demons with an 85 but Zayda Mestas (91) and Natasha Walcott (96) both finished in the top 13 on the leaderboard.

“It was that we were consistent,” Tichi said. “There was maybe on blowup hole and then just bogeys the rest of the way out.”

[divider]

Girls golf regional roundup:

4A Region 3:

Windsor and Niwot qualified as teams after solid rounds at Highland Hills. Timbre Shehee shot 79 to take medalist honors.

4A Region 2:

Sofia Choi paced Mullen to a team title with a 74. Bretton Ronlund shot 82 and Charlie Ruderman-Pratt fired an 88 to give help Denver North qualify as a team.

3A Region 2:

St. Mary’s Academy freshman Maddy Bante led the way with a 77 to help her team claim the regional title. Faith Christian also qualified as a team with Green Porter setting the pace for the Eagles with a 79.

5A Southern:

Cherry Creek took the top two spots on the leaderboard as Rachel Penzenstadler shot 73 and Merielle Gojo shot 79. Legend finished as the other team qualifier as 2018 5A champion Emma Bryant finished fourth.

3A Region 1:

Jefferson Academy’s Aubri Braecklein got herself into red numbers by firing a 69 at Hollydot. The Jaguars won the team title as Colorado Academy finished second behind Sage Phelps-Fast’s 83.

Girls golf regionals begin on Monday, June 7. Below is a complete breakdown of schedules and information.

[divider]

Class 5A

Region	Date	Time	Course	Leaderboard
Southern	6/8	Noon	Broken Tee	Link
Central	6/7	7:30 a.m.	City Park	Link
Western	6/10	8 a.m.	Indian Tree	Link
Northern	6/7	10 a.m.	Coyote Creek	Link

[divider]

Class 4A

Region	Date	Time	Course	Leaderboard
Region 1	6/9	8 a.m.	Country Club of Colorado	Link
Region 2	6/7	7:30 a.m.	Overland Park	Link
Region 3	6/7	7:30 a.m.	Highland Hills	Link
Region 4	6/10	8:30 a.m.	Indian Tree	Link

[divider]

Class 3A

Region	Date	Time	Course	Leaderboard
Region 1	6/9	9 a.m.	Hollydot	Link
Region 2	6/7	10 a.m.	South Suburban	Link
Region 3	6/10	9 a.m.	Estes Park	Link
Region 4	6/10	9 a.m.	Cattails	Link

ARVADA — Golden and Valor Christian girls golf programs were able to sweep the team and individual medalist titles this spring in the Class 4A and 5A Jeffco League.

Golden junior Jessica Morrissey dominated the 4A Jeffco race to the medalist title. Morrissey shot a round of 88 during the final conference tournament of the season May 27 at Indian Tree Golf Course. Her 41.9 9-hole average over the five league tournaments was nearly 5 strokes better than runner-up Littleton senior Sarah Young that finished with a 46.50 9-hole average.

Morrissey spearheaded the Demons’ run to the 4A Jeffco League team title. Conifer placed second and Evergreen took third in the team standings.

Valor cruised to the 5A Jeffco team title winning all five conference tournaments. Valor senior Grace Young’s 37.8 9-hole average was a full stroke better than Arvada West senior Anju Ogi to claim the 5A Jeffco medalist title.

Lakewood finished second and Ralston Valley third in the 5A Jeffco team standings.

Halie Ostrom and Sydney Rothstein finished first and second, respectively, to lead Niwot girls golf to a tournament win on Monday.

Competitors made their way to Riverdale Knolls for the Horizon girls golf invitational on Wednesday.

Teaching and coaching is in Colin Prater’s blood. The Palmer High School alum spent years following his grandfather Carl Fetters on the sidelines.

Fetters was a longtime football coach at Cheyenne Mountain High School before jumping on as an assistant in the area and later at Colorado State University-Pueblo, where he was on staff when the ThunderWolves claimed a national championship.

Fetters’ son, Monte, is the girls golf coach at Mesa Ridge and even served as the head girls basketball coach for a year.

It feels like Prater was destined to teach and coach, but one look at him on the golf course and it’s hard to figure out why he didn’t dedicate himself to trying to make it as a pro.

Prater is a rare winner of both the Colorado Amateur and the Colorado Match Play championship. He won the match play in June thanks in part to swiping a putter out of his grandfather’s garage.

He’s played in the U.S. Amateur twice (2016 and 2019) and won the Pikes Peak Amateur at Patty Jewett Golf Course four of the last five years. Last year, he shot a PJ course record 62 during Pikes Peak Am qualifying.

Sitting in front of the course’s trophy case where his scorecard proudly occupies the center, he chatted about what made him forgo a potential professional career in favor of teaching and coaching at the high school level.

[divider]

Question: What sticks out the most when you think about playing high school golf?

Prater: Definitely in high school, it’s all about development. It’s all about just trying to get better. You’re honing those skills in. Too many kids are so focused on trying to hit it farther. I definitely was, especially when I was a freshman, sophomore who was so tiny. It was all about trying to hit further. And what I think made me really good when I was super tiny was the fact that I was just always working on my short game. I knew I was only going to get to half the par fours in two, so I knew if I want to make par, then my short game had to be the best short game there was in the city.

I think that’s what kind of gave me some success early. Gramps always preached that for sure. But it’s just all development. It’s all work. It’s the same thing in any sport, it’s having really solid fundamentals. It’s so much easier to get back to doing something right if you have good fundamentals. It’s a lot more difficult if you don’t and it’s all timing based. It’s all about foundational stuff, fundamentals. Too many kids think they’re really good at an early age and so they don’t really have that work ethic that they need in order to be solid or be competitive if they’re going onto the next level.

Q: After you were after you’d wrapped up playing in college, you’ve played in a lot of statewide competitive tournaments, city competitive tournaments. I know you flirted with the idea of moving to Arizona to go pro, but why ultimately did the idea of teaching and getting into coaching win out?

Prater: I fell in love with teaching. I didn’t think I was going to love teaching as much. Once I graduated, once I was done in May of 2018, I was dead set (on going pro). I got started planning and got started lining up where I’m going to live, what I’m going to do when I’m down there. When I’m not playing, I’m trying to start talking to sponsors to see if I can get some money, this, that, and the other to kind of promote myself and kind of had all those lined up. I was dead set on it. I had four months of student teaching to do and have that in my back pocket if I needed it 10 years from now kind of thing. And I just fell in love with it.

And then talking with my girlfriend, she had a little, maybe a touch of uneasiness with her about wanting to move down there with me. That meant changing up her plans because she was about to start her master’s. We just decided collectively as one that we didn’t need to move. And I was just going to stay competitive and continue to work on my game, but stay amateur and maybe down the road, another door to open and I’d be able to go play. Lastly, probably just the fact that Gramps taught and coached for 34 years at Cheyenne Mountain. My uncle’s been in it now, I want to say this was this past year was this 26th or 27th year and I’m super close with them. So I talked to them. They say, they love it. It’s cliche, but it’s an in my blood kind of thing. I’m just super fortunate. I fell into a career that I love, I got into coaching super early, which is what I wanted to do and get that kind of start to try and get that experience. Life’s great for me.

Q: What have you learned throughout the competitive golf tournaments you’re playing in that that you’re hoping to apply to the girls golfers at Doherty?

Prater: I preach consistency. Try to become as consistent as possible. Even if it’s just kind of creating that standard. I’m very goal driven. I learned that in college. I’ve always needed to have a goal in mind and have a long term goal, but have great short term goals that motivate my girls. That’s kinda what I really preach to them. And I preached that to them for, I don’t know, like three weeks. I mean eight practices and maybe I like getting together with them a couple days before we started practicing. A lot of it is stuff I’m going to learn. I’m going work my butt off. I think I read a lot of golf books now that I’m done playing college golf, which makes absolutely zero sense.

You think you’d be reading them while you’re competing. But I’m just reading them just to try and get a new philosophy. It’s just like teaching. You have to say something four or five different ways in order for it to connect with all of your students. You can say at one way and great, 10 kids will get it, but you have to teach and you have to modify and you have to change how you teach it and what you say and to fit every kid. And so I think that’s what I’m truly trying to do now that I’ve got into coaching is just trying to make it applicable to all of the girls that I’m coaching.

Q: How much of, what you’re trying to do comes from watching your grandpa for however many years, whether it was high school football, college football, whatever? How much of him is in you as a coach and even as a teacher?

Prater: I don’t think I’m as mean as he is. He’s a hard (case). But definitely his rapport with kids. He connects with them even now that he’s like almost 80. The guy’s 79, but just has a great rapport with kids and how he interacts with people in public. He’s has always done a really good job of being able to connect with kids and just like my uncle has as well. He’s a grinder and he works his tail off.

I would like to think that I have a little bit of that in me as well and I think a lot of what I’ve learned and a lot of what I preach is stuff that came straight out of his mouth that he taught me when I was seven or eight and when I was 12 and I was tired and I had blisters on my hands because I hit 455 golf balls today. He’d say, “there are still 40 balls left.” No matter what you do, you can always do something better. I’m trying to mold that into my philosophy of use. Every single day is a day to get better, no matter what, no matter how much success you’ve had. You can always be better. You can, you can always be a better golfer. You can always be a better person. You can always say please and thank you, those kinds of things. That’s what he’s really good at. He’s about those fine details and that’s one thing that I have to work on for sure.

Q: He’s been around long enough that surely you have something you carry around with you or use from time to time whether you’re playing or teaching. Anything stick out in your head?

Prater: I hear his voice in my head sometimes. It comes out way more when he’s there. I’ll hit a bad shot and I know exactly what he said in his head. I’ve been so lucky. My grandparents, my parents, they’ve always been there, no matter what. I was telling (Colorado Springs Gazette sports columnist Paul) Klee that it was goofy (at the Colorado Match Play) Monday and Tuesday, because there were no spectators allowed. And that was the first time in a long time that I’ve played a round of competitive golf and not had at least one of the four of them there. I grew up and it might’ve been my grandma or it might’ve been Gramps or it might’ve been my parents. There was a rare occasion where it was just one of them, but more often than not, it was all four of them. So just to be able to have that support and have those people behind you is great. I didn’t learn this until I was probably 13 or 14, but they’re riding my butt or yelling at me. They’re critiquing me because they know I can be better. They know that’s the only way to get better, you need some tough love. That’s exactly what you need. And that’s how I was raised.

When I was young, like 11 and 12, I never understood. I went 2-for-4 at a baseball game and didn’t make an error in the field and encouraged my teammates really well and stole three bases. But I struck out once and after the game, my Gramps asked, “why did you strike out?” And I get in the car and mom takes me home. Same freaking thing. “Why’d you strike out.” And riding me for that and not congratulating me for doing the other things. But they knew that if I can put in enough time and effort and motivate myself enough that in that next game, I go 3-for-4 with a ground out and not strike out. And at the same time, they’re still critiquing. Why’d you fumble that ball when you were playing shortstop? You’re playing golf and you shoot 74 and that’s great at 15, but you had two three-putts. Why is Gramps riding me about these two three-putts kind of thing. Fortunately I really realized at 16 that it pays dividends even to this day. I’m my own harshest critic and I think that’s the best way to continue to either maintain or ideally improve your game.

Q: What’s the story behind the putter that your grandpa gave you, that you used to win the Match Play?

Prater: It’s a TaylorMade Daddy Long Legs. It’s (CSU-Pueblo football coach) John Wristen’s putter. I think he didn’t like it. My Gramps asked to try it and then I’m in his garage probably first week of June, mowing his grass. So I take it with me one day and start playing with it. I love the way it feels. I’m able to control my speed really well. It has this real long grip on it, so I can let my arms hang a little bit better, and for me that’s better. I just fell in love with it, even though my speed the first four days of the match play was absolutely terrible. I think I had five or six three-putts but it paid dividends in the final because I chipped and putted like a stud the last day. It’s a great putter so then I bought another one on eBay as a backup, even though I think I like Wristen’s putter more.

Q: I know you’re jumping the boys basketball staff this winter. That and with everything that’s gone on, do you have some renewed energy to get back to work?

Prater: Yeah, absolutely. We’re going on around four months that I haven’t seen kid. We started basketball camp a couple of weeks ago, so I’ve seen some of them, but yeah, absolutely. I’m super excited for August, no matter how things look. I’m super anxious. I’m super excited. And at the same time too, I have tons to learn. I mean I’m 25, I’m going into my second year of teaching. I’d love to be able to coach girls golf next spring and I’m super stoked. We’re five weeks away from us teachers reporting back to school. I have to play a lot of golf in that time before then. I want to try and teach my kids something every day, whether I’m teaching them, whether I’m coaching them, It doesn’t matter if it’s Doherty girls golf, whether it’s Doherty boys golf or boys basketball. I’m going to be teaching chemistry this next year which is a new class for me, so I still got a lot to learn in that regard, but hopefully I’ll learn something every single day. And then my kids will learn something every single day.

COLORADO SPRINGS — The good news for Eaglecrest senior-to-be Emma Bryant is that she’s never lost a Class 5A girls golf state tournament that didn’t play out to a full two rounds.

Her freshman year, she shot an impressive 2-under-par 70 at the Boulder Country Club to claim gold in her first try at a state tournament. It was a feeling she was hoping to capture at least one time in her high school career.

But fate has not been on her side in that time. The 2019 state tournament was cut short to one day due to weather and she finished tied for 15th, eight strokes behind champion Lauren Lehigh of Loveland. The 2020 season was called off due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Rather than dwell on what could have been in those two years, Bryant continues to work on her game and put herself in a position where she must compete against the best players in the state.

Last week she finished third at the Colorado Jr. PGA Championship, the first major of the Junior Golf Alliance of Colorado’s summer tour season.

The summer is a long way from over and Bryant knows that the time she has is vital in order to represent Eaglecrest with another championship win.

“I have one year left of high school,” Bryant said. “I just have to go full speed ahead. This summer is really important. I’ve already committed to the University of Denver and now it’s about getting ready for college and using this time refine my skills and perfecting the small things.”

Those small things were crucial when it came to winning her freshman year. She sank five bridies on the front nine of that final round which helped her shoot up the leaderboard.

When she sank a birdie putt on 18, she officially made the 5A individual golf titles a family affair as her older brother Davis had won the boys title that fall.

Davis’ title was the only one of his career and he’s now established himself as a vital member of Colorado State’s men’s golf team.

Emma is hoping to do the same for DU, but among the many reasons that she wants to claim another state title is to have a bit of family bragging rights.

“Of course I want to beat him,” she said with a laugh. “I mean, I already beat him in way if we look at when I won and when he won, but it would be great to say I won twice. He only has one so I’d be in the record books there.”

It was recently announced that the 2021 girls state golf tournaments would be moved into June. Although associate commissioner Tom Robinson cited many reasons for the change, pushing them out of questionable times in terms of weather was certainly an added benefit.

“It kind of sucks that I’ve only played in one (full) state tournament,” Bryant said. “I am hoping my senior year I can come out on top and say that I’m undefeated in (two round) tournaments.”

One look at an activity log for either Kate or Anna Griffin and one thing is clear and obvious: Neither one seems to crave downtime.

The (non-identical) twins are constantly busy whether it’s on the athletic fields, in the classroom or volunteering for their community. They do it all and they do it all very well.

And they mostly do it at different schools. Anna spent her high school days at Coronado where she played volleyball and tennis. She qualified for the Class 4A state tennis tournament three times and helped the Cougars reach the 4A volleyball semifinals this previous fall.

Like her sister, Kate is a multi-sport athlete, only she competes at the Colorado Springs School after figuring out that she preferred a small-school environment. Kate runs cross country, plays basketball and in the spring plays both tennis and golf. As the Kodiaks don’t have a golf team, Kate played for Coronado.

She took 12th at the 2019 2A girls state cross country meet before placing third at the 3A girls tennis tournament and turning around less than two weeks later to take sixth at state golf.

“She excels at every sport but she has more accolades in golf, tennis and cross country over her career,” CSS girls basketball coach and athletic director Vicki Vaughn said. “She was all-state in all three of those sports, but basketball always resonated with her because of the team aspect.”

That right there is the true spirit of both Griffin sisters. They prioritize others over self and that’s especially true outside of athletics.

They’re both members of the National Honor Society and spent countless hours volunteering for their schools and communities.

“It’s definitely something I thought about right when I joined CSS,” Kate said. “At a private school, academics always come first. Community service is a requirement but it’s very important to me. It wasn’t all that challenging to figure out I needed to balance athletics as well as being involved in the community and the school.”

It runs in the family.

Anna takes the same approach at Coronado. She likes taking a leadership mentality to the volleyball and tennis courts and uses that same approach to better the world around her. It’s a heavy burden for a high school student to take on, but as she’s progressed in athletics and activities, it’s clear that it’s part of who she is, not what she does.

“Going into high school through sports, that’s something I wanted to do by being a team captain or even just as a freshman on the JV team,” Anna said. “That translated through my service. Being a part of NHS or NCL — which is the National Charity League — we did a lot of community service.”

A lot of that community service was was done through the John Zay Guest House which she quickly proclaimed to be her favorite charity.

Perhaps the most impressive aspect of how busy both sisters are is how they can balance every task on their plate and do it at a high level.

“It takes somebody very driven and motivated to maintain that balance and focus on important things like that,” former Coronado volleyball coach Crissy Leonhardt said. “She has it. She’s that kid. She’s a go-getter. When she puts her mind to something she’ll get it done and she will do it right.”

The one thing she had yet to do, and was on the verge of this spring, was sharing the playing field with her sister. Kate originally devoted most of her time to golf and for their senior year, she wanted Anna to join the team with her.

“She was pretty convincing,” Anna said. “I had talked to the golf coach a little bit about it and she was edging me to do it and I was pretty close. There’s a very good chance I would’ve been on the golf team.”

Which would’ve meant splitting time between golf and tennis. But not to worry because Kate had that blueprint all worked out.

Kate’s only intention was to add to it and had planned on playing soccer for Colorado Springs School as well as tennis while also competing for Coronado’s golf team.

“It’s kind of just become muscle memory,” Kate said of keeping her activities and school work all in line.

Although they didn’t get to share time on the golf course together, they have four years of shared experiences ahead of them. Both girls will attend Colorado State and study bio sciences.

And it wouldn’t be a surprise to see them find their way to some sort of athletic competition whether it’s intramurals, club or even somehow varsity.

If they’ve shown anything these last four years, it’s that they can find time to carve out for any activity they want.

The girls golf state championships will move into June for the spring 2021 spring season, following a vote of CHSAA’s Legislative Council on Friday.

The change passed along with the rest of the golf report during the virtual meeting, which brings together 77 representatives of schools, leagues and associations. And it did so overwhelmingly, with 97 percent approval.

“I think if we can do this in June, we can create a better situation for the girls,” said CHSAA association commissioner Tom Robinson, who oversees golf.

The change also moves regionals back one week, to May 24-26. The state tournaments will be held June 1-2, 2021. Typically, the state championships are held around the final week in May.

There are three main reasons for the change in dates:

Primarily, it moves the postseason away from traditional AP and IB testing dates. It also avoids many scheduled graduations of schools. And it should — fingers crossed — help alleviate some issues the tournaments have faced with weather over recent seasons.

“We agreed that there were issues with the spring, of course, with weather,” Robinson said. “But that was something we had no control over. But we did have control over moving scheduled regional and state events off of AP and IB events. For girls, that seems to be a bigger factor than the boys.

“We’ve always had to make choices around those dates,” Robinson continued. “As well as the thing that happens year-in and year-out, and that’s trying to negotiate when you’re going to play, or if you’re going to attend your graduation ceremony.

“Those are the main issues, and because we are CHSAA and we are an education-based Association, we should make considerations for at least hose kind of things,” he added. “I applaud the membership for supporting these changes.”

As for weather, there is of course no guarantee that moisture will stay away from championship rounds, but average rainfall trends indicate that May is often wetter than June in Colorado. The 2019 state tournaments were limited to one round in all three classes, and the same thing happened to 5A in 2015. Many other rounds, such as 2014’s 5A tourney, have been interrupted but ultimately completed.

“I think in the end, we will have more good days than bad by having it the first week in June,” Robinson said. “We can’t predict bad weather, even in the fall, but I think this increases our chances of having a two-day event. And it gives options for the girls to be able to play without issue.”

The specific 2021 championship sites have not yet been solidified. Robinson is working with various courses to secure those dates, and is leaning toward municipal courses so that everyone can have equal access to practice rounds.

Overall, he sees the move as a step forward for the girls.

“All around, it’s a positive message to the girls,” Robinson said.