(Bert Borgmann/CHSAANow.com)

AURORA — Emotions tend to run high before the first game of the season. For players and fans alike, the start of a season holds untold promises, dreams and hopes. It is a time unlike no other in a high school athlete’s life. It’s the same for coaches, too.

For Smoky Hill’s first-year head coach Justin Hoffman, the gamut of feelings had to be extreme Friday as his young Buffs took the field to play Gateway, a team that Hoffman coached for the past six years, and a school where he was also the athletic director.

Hoffman was standing across the field from his former team. Prior to the game, Hoffman greeted new GHS head coach Ashour Peera and a few of his former players. But, once the game started, any reminiscing took a backseat.

Gateway set out to establish the run and it piled up the yards in the game. But it took late defensive stand to hold off the Buffs 28-25 in the season opener for both teams.

After the teams traded fumbles to start the game, Gateway started on a sustained drive that was interrupted for 30 minutes by a lightning delay. The Olys’ quarterback Lance Savage capped off a 50-yard drive with a one-yard plunge and John Oquendo added the kick to put GHS up 7-0. Gateway would never trail.

Smoky Hill got on the board in the first as quarterback Trent Clay ran in from six yards out. The extra point missed and the Buffs trailed 7-6 after one.

(Bert Borgmann/CHSAANow.com)

At 8:48 in the second Calvin Weber took the ball off the left side for 27 yards and another Oquendo PAT made the score 14-6 Gateway. With just 16 seconds left, Isaac Fuqua capped a long Olympians’ drive and Oquendo’s third PAT of the game gave GHS a 21-6 lead at halftime.

Not to be outdone, Smoky Hill took the opening kickoff to near midfield. On the third play of the quarter, Isaiah Alexander took a pitch from Clay around the right side for 49 yards and a score. A two-point attempt failed, but Smoky Hill had cut into the Gateway lead 28-12.

Gateway’s Fuqua answered for the Olympians on the next drive scoring from 15 yards out. Oquendo’s PAT made it 28-12 Gateway with 5:29 left in the third.

After the kick and on the first play of the next possession, Alexander took another pitch, this time on the left side, for 75 yards and another score. After another failed two-point conversion, Gateway still led 28-18 with 5:08 remaining in the third quarter.

The teams traded scoring chances in the fourth quarter, but until the 39-second mark, neither team could capitalize on its opponent’s mistakes. Finally, Alexander took a pass from Clay through the Oly defense for 27 yards and Annika Edginton added the PAT to bring the Buffs to within 28-25.

Two attempts at an onside kick failed and Gateway left the field 1-0. Fuqua had 162 yards on 19 carries and the two TDs, while Savage was 16-93 with a score, Weber 19-61 and a touchdown, and Quintavis Styles 8-81. Savage was 1 of 5 passing for 22 yards.

For Smoky Hill, Alexander had 147 yards on six carries and the two TDs, while Clay added 23 yards on 9 carries and a score, and Tylor Brown added 12 yards on six carries. Clay was 15 of 22 for 190 yards, a score and an interception. Frank Thomas had 5 catches for 70 yards to lead all receivers.

Senior quarterback Tyler Smith had three touchdown passes and two more on the ground as Grandview rolled to a 37-7 win over Horizon on Thursday.

Legacy and Liberty battled to a 1-1 tie in boys soccer on Thursday.

Ryan Kenyon scored for Liberty, while Adam Leash had Legacy’s goal.

The following is Riddell’s response to address aftermarket accessories and NOCSAE certification:

Football helmets and face masks worn by professional, collegiate, high school and most youth football players are required to meet National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment (NOCSAE) performance standards. NOCSAE certification involves rigorous internal product testing, independent laboratory testing and a sound quality assurance program. Each helmet and face mask model is certified by the manufacturer to meet NOCSAE performance standards. The manufacturer certification is void if the helmet or face mask is modified in any way. Riddell recommends against the use of any third party aftermarkert accessories that alter the fit, form or function of the helmet or face mask as such modifications void the NOCSAE certification and render the helmet or face mask illegal for most organized play.

Stormy weather forced Grand Junction and Prairie View to delay their kickoff until 8:45 p.m. (Bert Borgmann/CHSAANow.com)

Question: Why are games delayed by lightning?

Late summer thunderstorms are often a blessing and can cut the oppressive heat of a 90-degree plus August day. But, for those people who are responsible for the players and fans attending games as the fall high school season begins, they can also mean danger and potential trouble.

There’s a CHSAANow.com story about last week’s Prairie View-Grand Junction Zero Week game played in Henderson. The accompanying photos show one of a thunderstorm swirling above the stadium. That storm produced lightning close enough to the site to postpone warm-ups and keep fans from entering the stadium. Although the game’s a week old, it serves as an example of how schools deal with threatening weather.

There is a national protocol that schools follow when the threat of lightning is present.

If that threat is near before the teams warm up, the decision to allow fans to enter the stadium and the teams to take the field for warm-ups is the responsibility of the host team’s game management personnel. Back to PVHS. Athletic Trainer Michelle Taylor is tasked with ensuring that it’s safe for players and fans alike to enter the stadium.

Using a lightning detector that helps identify approximate distances, she and other game management are able to track storms and provide more accurate information on the storm’s track. While last week’s storm was rolling across the foothills, Taylor was able to help game management track the storm and more accurately predict an appropriate game start time.

But the volatile weather can also throw a wrench in the plans. After two delays, the teams got onto the fields, an official saw lightning close enough that he called for a third delay until yet another cell passed. The game kicked off at 8:45 p.m. and had no further delays.

The nationally-recommended protocol was developed by the National Federation of State High School Associations and was adopted in 2010. Here is the suggested protocol:

NFHS GUIDELINES ON HANDLING CONTESTS DURING LIGHTNING DISTURBANCES

National Federation of State High School Associations (NFHS)/Sports Medicine Advisory Committee (SMAC)

The purpose of these guidelines is to provide a default policy to those responsible for making decisions concerning the suspension and restarting of contests based on the presence of lightning. The preferred sources from which to request such a policy for your facility would include your state high school association and the nearest office of the National Weather Service.

Proactive Planning

1. Assign staff to monitor local weather conditions before and during events.

2. Develop an evacuation plan, including identification of appropriate nearby shelters.

3. Develop criteria for suspension and resumption of play:

• When thunder is heard, or a cloud-to-ground lightning bolt is seen, the thunderstorm is close enough to strike your location with lightning. Suspend play and take shelter immediately.
• Thirty-minute rule. Once play has been suspended, wait at least 30 minutes after the last thunder is heard or flash of lightning is witnessed prior to resuming play.
• Any subsequent thunder or lightning after the beginning of the 30 minute count, reset the clock and another 30 minute count should begin.

4. Hold periodic reviews for appropriate personnel.

For more detailed information, refer to the “Guidelines for Lightning Safety” section contained in the NFHS Sports Medicine Handbook.

HIGHLANDS RANCH — This Hopper kid, he’s a weapon. Combine him with a quarterback like Brody Westmoreland, and back the two up with a defense like that? Yeah, this team could go far.

Wide receiver Mark Hopper had two touchdowns and 153 yards as ThunderRidge easily handled Dakota Ridge, 30-7, in the opener for both teams on Thursday night at Shea Stadium.

“I knew he would be a good threat for us,” said Grizzlies coach Joe Johnson.

Hopper, a senior, is coming off a season in which he had 568 yards receiving and five touchdowns. But Thursday night was easily the best game of his career. The seven catches, 153 yards and two scores were all career highs.

“I felt really good today,” Hopper said after the game.

His best catch of the night was the back-breaker, and came late in the second quarter after Westmoreland rolled to his right and lofted a pass toward the end zone. A Dakota Ridge defender tipped the ball at the goal line, but Hopper, while falling backwards near the end line, was able to haul it in.

Dakota Ridge had been hanging around up to that point, but that score gave ThunderRidge a 21-0 lead just before the half.

“Me and Hopper have had a connection since we were 7 years old. We’ve known each other forever,” Westmoreland said. “We’ve been best friends ever since, and we’ve just always been on the same ball field — either baseball or football — and just tearing it up together.”

Said Hopper: “We have the best chemistry. We’re best friends in school, always go to lunch together. He just always knows where I’m at, and that really helps.”

ThunderRidge beat Dakota Ridge on Thursday night at Shea Stadium. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

Westmoreland, the Grizzlies’ longtime starter, finished the game 10-for-10 with 204 yards and two touchdowns through the air. He also had 84 yards and another score on the ground.

“He’s a big-timer for us,” Johnson said of Westmoreland. “He’s very confident. Sometimes, he corrects me when I get us in the wrong formation: ‘No, we’ve got to do this, coach.’ ‘Yeah, you’re right. Call that.’ He’s just a great kid, and a great leader for us, too. And has been for a long time, not just this year.”

Running back Matt Stanley, a junior, finished with 118 yards and two touchdowns while rushing behind a solid offensive line that includes top recruit Sam Jones.

ThunderRidge’s defense was tested, especially because the offense lost four fumbles. But the unit more than did its part, allowing just 68 yards on the ground — though Dakota Ridge quarterback Braxton Thais did have a good night with 201 yards and a touchdown pass.

“I was very pleased,” Johnson said. “I was more happy with our defense than our offense, to be honest. I thought we played real well. I think they’re a good offensive football team. They do some things well, that kid throws the ball well.”

Linebacker Tyler Seno had two interception for the Grizzlies.

ThunderRidge, ranked third in CHSAANow.com’s Class 5A football poll, ended last season with a defeat to eventual champion Valor Christian in the semifinals. Many are expecting this team to reach at least that point again in 2013.

“They are pretty high, the expectations, but I think we’ve got good leaders who keep us under control,” Hopper said.

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Last Tuesday, the Valor Christian boy’s varsity tennis team took on the Golden Demons. The Valor boys came away with 3 singles and 4 doubles wins sweeping the traveling Demons. The number 3 singles player Drake Bailey and number 2 singles Jimmy Amundson came away with tough three set wins. All other teams won in 2 sets including all doubles teams and a one singles win coming from Erik Ratkelis: 6-1, 6-0. The varsity tennis team will play against Cheyenne Mountain High School, the defending 4A state champs on September 9th at 3:30 here on campus.

A complete schedule and scoreboard for football’s top-10 teams in Week 1.

• Full schedule and scoreboard of all Week 1 games
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• Complete CHSAANow.com rankings
• Follow all the action in our live chat, beginning at 4 p.m. Friday

All games Friday unless noted.

Go to: 5A | 4A | 3A | 2A | 1A | 8-man | 6-man

The Classical Academy Cross country coach Alan Versaw. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

COLORADO SPRINGS — Here was the initial roster: Seven boys, three girls. Six of those kids were still in middle school.

“We were running as individuals,” coach Alan Versaw said recently. “But it was fun.”

“To this day,” he added, “the things I learned from them, the sort of team things they set in place, are still present. It is uncanny how much harkens back to the first year or two when there were just so few kids there. They just wanted to go out and conquer everything they could conquer.”

Versaw’s program has grown to the point that it is now among the state’s elite. The girls have won ten consecutive state championships dating to 2003 and the boys have five in that same span.

“I was completely unaware of the sort of stuff that would follow,” Versaw said. “Not in my wildest dreams could I imagine the kind of program it became.”

The coach himself didn’t even run cross country in high school. He went to Sangre de Cristo, near Alamosa, where he played football and ran track. The school didn’t have a cross country program.

“I don’t think I would’ve run cross country if we had,” Versaw said. “I wasn’t tuned that way quite yet.”

In college, he started participating in road races, but a bone chip in his knee forced surgery and he stopped running — for 20 years. He didn’t pick it back up again until started TCA’s program.

“I knew that I really, really liked the kind of mindset that came out for cross country,” Versaw said.

By 2003, the girls had won a Class 3A state title. A year later, the boys won their first. Things exploded from there, and Versaw’s Titans started to dominate. In 2006, both teams won state championships. In 2009, TCA girls went 1-2-3, placed five runners in the top ten and six in the top 13.

Last year, both programs made the leap to 4A. The boys finished eighth — “Last year was kind of a tough year for the guys to bridge up to 4A,” Versaw said, noting they returned just one runner from the 2011 state meet — and the girls won.

“The depth of the other teams is so different” in 4A, Versaw said. “3A has some really talented individuals, but we were going, any given year, seven or eight or nine girls deep and there weren’t 3A schools that could match up.

“You know, a couple of (the girls) told me that at the end of the season: ‘Coach, I was really kind of skeptical at the beginning of the season, not sure what to make of it, but it was a lot more fun at the end,’ ” Versaw added. “And that’s easy to understand. What’s more fun? Going up a 14er where you’ve got to use your hands and you’re hanging out in the air a little, or just strolling up? That’s the kind of difference it is.”

This season, the girls opened as the No. 1 team in the preseason 4A Colorado Track XC/CHSAANow.com poll. The boys are No. 3.

So, yeah, expectations are high. Again.

The girls return five of the seven girls from last year’s state meet team.

“We went about 11 girls deep, really strong last year, and we only lost two as seniors,” Versaw said. “We just had a really good summer. A lot of dedication from the kids. Yes, they lifted the level of their training, but I think they also did it in a smart way. There’s a pretty tight bonding among these girls, and I think they’re committed to one another.

“They know what it takes,” he continued. “The eyes were open kind of wide last year, in 4A, and they didn’t know what to expect. I think they made some adjustments over the last year and I think that’s why I saw the kind of summer I did with their training.”

Six of seven boys from last year’s state meet team are back.

“Eighth isn’t bad, but they had a whole new picture and a whole new mindset this year of what it takes,” Versaw said. “They worked harder this summer than ever before, and their sights are high.”

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The Classical Academy at the state meet

A look at how TCA’s cross country teams have fared at the state meet since 2001, including a breakdown of how individual runners finished.