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Pueblo South’s Isaac Naro. (Courtesy of Jerry Sisneros)
PUEBLO — The history of high school wrestling in Pueblo is storied. Since 1949, wrestlers from Pueblo have captured 69 individual state championships. But none of those wrestlers had the opportunity Isaac Naro has.
Naro, a sophomore at Pueblo South High School, has the chance to become the Steel City’s first four-time state champ. South has won a Pueblo-best 23 individual state wrestling champs.
“I do like the pressure because it gives me more mental toughness to practice harder and train harder because everybody is coming at me now,” Naro said. “I know I have to work even harder to get back to that state championship match and make history.”
Naro put himself in this position with his stunning performance at the Class 4A state tournament last February at the Pepsi Center in Denver. He concluded his improbable state tourney run by shocking Pueblo Central’s Sonny Espinoza 5-2 in the 132-pound finals.
Naro. (Courtesy of Jerry Sisneros)
“It is just crazy,” said Naro moments after he beat Espinoza. “I’m just so excited right now. I did my best out there and listened to my coaches. This is just incredible.”
Espinoza had a 2-0 season record against Naro before state. He beat Naro 17-2 at the Pueblo East Invite in December 2012 and 7-3 last January in a dual.
Espinoza, now a freshman wrestler at the University of Northern Colorado, is Pueblo’s all-time prep wrestling wins leader at 163.
“The more I look back on it, the more I realize how cool it was to be there and Sonny was a very good wrestler,” said Naro, who finished with a 28-5 record last season. “I lost to him twice before that and it was a good feeling to beat him in the finals where it counted the most.”
This season Naro hasn’t missed a beat.
He is ranked No. 1 in Class 4A at 138 pounds by On The Mat and is sporting a 12-1 record. South also is ranked No. 4 in 4A and is vying for its fourth state wrestling crown.
The Colts won state in 1997, 2004 and 2005 — all in Class 4A. South also has finished second in state three times in 1999 (Class 5A), 2006 (Class 4A) and 2012 (Class 4A).
“I’ve had a good season, but I know I can get better,” Naro, 15, said. “I can’t take anything for granted. I need to work harder and harder each day at practice.”
(Courtesy of Jerry Sisneros)
Naro’s only blemish this season was a 5-3 overtime loss to Rocky Mountain’s Danny Murphy in the finals of the Warrior Classic in Grand Junction last month.
“This year the biggest thing is Isaac is healthy,” veteran South coach Jerry Sisneros said. “He had a lot of nagging injuries last year. Plus, he had a great offseason lifting weights and he’s stronger and a year older. He’s just a very good wrestler who also keeps himself in every match.”
Marcus Martinez, a senior who is ranked No. 2 at 132 pounds, concurred with his coach.
“Isaac is a great teammate,” said Martinez, a state runner-up at 120 pounds a year ago. “He always works hard in the room and brings intensity. He just has some moves that are really unique that you don’t see very much and they are hard to defend, especially when you are on the bottom. In our room, everybody is focused on doing what they can do to help us win state. It would mean so much if we could win state.”
Naro has been honing his wrestling craft since he was 5 years old.
“I love how wrestling teaches you mental toughness and teaches you life lessons,” the 5-foot-8 Naro said. “I love getting in there and having fun with my friends. Hopefully, if I keep it up I will be able to get a college scholarship for my wrestling skills. That would be cool.”
‘You Can Play, Colorado!’ asks students to tell stories of acceptance and teamwork through videos; Avs captain and Olympian Landeskog takes center ice in new video
Aurora, CO – The Colorado High School Activities Association is joining with a host of luminaries—including the Colorado Avalanche, Denver Nuggets and Denver Mayor Michael Hancock—to fight bullying and deliver messages of inclusion and acceptance for all students participating in high school activities such as sports, speech, music and student leadership.
It’s part of the “We Are CHSAA” positive leadership campaign, an educational experience—in partnership with the Positive Coaching Alliance, You Can Play and the Gill Foundation’s Gay and Lesbian Fund—dedicated to ensuring that all students are encouraged to participate and be accepted for what they bring to a team or activity, and not excluded for what some might see as differences.
The Avs and captain Gabriel Landeskog are putting “You Can Play, Colorado!” at center ice with an exciting video featuring student athletes from Regis Jesuit and Mountain Vista. The video can be viewed here:
Attention will now focus on the “You Can Play, Colorado!” student videos. The contest, which runs through February, challenges students, teams and groups to explain how and why they welcome everyone based on heart, talent and commitment without excluding students because of race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity, or other perceived differences.
The top “You Can Play, Colorado!” videos will win cash prizes for the students’ school. And the winning videos will be shown at the State Basketball Championships on March 15. Denver East High School has already posted a video that demonstrates the power these visual messages can provide for a school.
To learn more about the “You Can Play, Colorado!” contest and to view student videos, please visit CHSAANow.com/leadership/youcanplay.
Stay tuned for upcoming “You Can Play Colorado!” videos from the Nuggets and Mayor Hancock, a former officer in the CHSAA’s student leadership program. CHSAA will also share many of the videos submitted by students across Colorado.
The 5A Centennial League has a long standing tradition of great conference battles in boys basketball. If Wednesday night’s Eaglecrest at Grandview rivalry game was any indication, that tradition should continue during the 2013-14 season.
Two games removed from a 55-54 loss to No. 1 Denver East right before the break when senior guard Jaisean Jackson missed a potential game-winning shot, this time Eaglecrest’s Jackson made an 18-foot buzzer-beating jumper to edge Grandview 55-53.
The defending state champion Raptors, ranked No. 6 in the current CHSAANow poll, were down 14-7 at the end of the first quarter and 26-14 at halftime due to No. 8 Grandview’s solid defense and the Raptors’ inability to make shots or free-throws. Eaglecrest only made six field goals and went 2-8 from the charity stripe in the first half.
Grandview’s senior guard KyRon Allen hit two big three-pointers and had eight points, all in the first quarter, and fellow senior guard Armani Stevenson chipped in six by halftime. The first half was marred by several turnovers by both teams and some likely jitters in a rivalry game.
“We can’t play any worse in the first half and I think we just needed to settle down,” Eaglecrest coach John Olander said. “First league game, big crowd, great team that we were playing against and we just needed to play aggressive. We weren’t really playing that aggressive in the first half. (We were) settling for too many quick shots.”
The third quarter began with more cold shooting by the Raptors and they quickly went down 40-19 after a 14-5 run by Grandview. Allen tallied six of the points during the run.
(Brock Laue)
Eaglecrest then started to utilize the speed and defensive tenacity of Elijah Ross, LaDerian King and Jackson — a trio of athletic guards — to wreak havoc on the Wolves’ offense and get some easy transition buckets late in the third quarter.The Raptors also buried some big three-pointers and suddenly found themselves down only 40-32 going into the fourth.
6-foot-5 forward Blend Avdili had six points and several important rebounds in the quarter, and King had seven points.
The Raptors finally got hot on offense and had the ball with the game tied at 53 and 6.4 seconds on the clock. Out of a timeout, they put the ball in the hands of Jackson, a senior who started on last year’s state title team.
“I looked at the clock and it looked like less than a second,” Jackson said. “I put it up, follow through and everything, and it was bottom of the net.”
Eaglecrest outscored Grandview 23-12 in the final quarter to seal the win in a hostile environment and start conference play 1-0.
“It’s the first one in the league. This rivalry is a great rivalry, probably one of the best in the state,” Olander said. “To be able to come in here, I’m just really proud of my guys — every single one of them — to be able to come back from down twenty in the second half and they never quit.
“But you have to give Grandview credit. It’s hard to play with the lead, you’re trying to protect the lead. We were really aggressive and I think we were lucky to get out of here with one but we’ll take it.”
Jackson, despite a shot he will surely not forget, stood by the old one-game-at-a time approach.
“Just keep playing defense. Defense kept us in this game,” Jackson said. “They hit good shots, but we just had to keep playing defense and keep playing and keep playing and sooner or later we knew that they would get tired, turn the ball over.
“It’s just another ‘W,’ we have way more big games to go. This is just the beginning of winning league.”
Ross led the Raptors in scoring with 15 points, seven of which came in the final quarter. Avdili chipped in nine points and Jackson and King each had seven.
Allen had a team high 14 points and Keanu Flores, a sharpshooter, had 10 — including three 3-pointers — for the Wolves.
Eaglecrest moved to 8-2 this season and 1-0 in arguably this year’s premier 5A boys basketball league, the Centennial. The Raptors will return to action against another tough opponent Friday night at 7 p.m. with a home contest against No. 10 Cherry Creek, a team that is also 1-0 in conference following a 58-45 win over No. 7 Arapahoe on Wednesday.
Grandview will have a home game against a solid Mullen Mustangs squad on Friday at 7 p.m.
The Centennial League currently has five teams ranked in the top-10 by CHSAANow and will certainly provide a bevy of competitive games all season long.
Three of the state’s best wrestling teams will be on display in a big-time inter-classification meet on Friday when Thompson Valley hosts Pomona and Brush.
The host Eagles are ranked No. 2 in the most recent Class 4A rankings provided by On The Mat. Pomona is ranked fourth in 5A, while Brush is No. 1 in 3A.
“It should be a great night of wrestling,” Thompson Valley athletic director Ernie Derrera wrote in an email.
The triangular meet begins at 5 p.m. at Thompson Valley High School.
“We will wrestle in a rotating format so that no team is sitting out for a length of time,” Derrera said.
For example, Brush will wrestle Pomona at 106 pounds, Thompson Valley vs. Brush at 113, and Pomona vs. Thompson Valley at 119.
Dakota Ridge senior Ian MacDonald, left, drives past Standley Lake senior Dylan Critchfield for a layup Tuesday night at Dakota Ridge High School. The Eagles won 56-50 to extend their winning streak to six games. (Dennis Pleuss)
LITTLETON — It was clearly a team effort Tuesday night for Dakota Ridge’s boys basketball team in its Class 5A Jeffco League battle against Standley Lake.
Dakota Ridge (7-1, 2-0 in league) ran its winning streak to six games with a 56-50 victory over the Gators (6-4, 1-2). The key for the Eagles was a balanced scoring attack, led by seniors Jake Flores (12 points) and Jake Jones (11 points).
“I think we’ve almost had a different leading scorer almost every single game, which is good,” Dakota Ridge coach Curi Yutzy said of eight different players scoring in the conference win. “We have a nice balanced attack. We have a lot of guys who contribute.”
Standley Lake senior Marcus Asmus (33) sets up for a jumper over Dakota Ridge junior Alden Erickson on Tuesday night. Asmus had 35 points in the Gators’ loss. (Dennis Pleuss)
A lot of defensive pressure early by Dakota Ridge led to some easy buckets. The Eagles jumped out to an 8-0 lead and never trailed.
“We worked on trying to get a lot of ball pressure on,” Yutzy said on counteracting Standley Lake’s size advantage. “Obviously, we started on an 8-0 run and that was nice.”
Flores scored on a driving layup with 3:23 left in the fourth quarter, giving the Eagles their largest lead of the night, 48-36. However, one of the premier scorers in the state wouldn’t allow the Gators to go quietly.
Standley Lake senior Marcus Asmus kept the Gators above water for the majority of the night while pouring in a game-high 35 points.
“(Asmus) has worked so hard in the offseason,” Standley Lake coach Mike Puccio said his 6-foot-7 senior who drained three 3-pointers to go along with a solid inside game. “He went from strictly a post guy to a guy who has really worked on his game. It’s a nice story.”
Standley Lake’s 6-foot-8 senior Dylan Critchfield finished with six points, while juniors Jeremy Minnick, Lukas Gaudermann and sophomore Eric Turner each hit a 3-pointer to wrap up the scoring for the Gators.
Dakota Ridge senior Jacob Flores soars for a layup during the second half Tuesday night. Flores had a team-high 12 points in the Eagles’ 56-50 home victory against Standley Lake. (Dennis Pleuss)
Tuesday night’s matchup featured two head coaches that are Jeffco products. Yutzy, a 2000 graduate of Chatfield High School, is in his sixth year at the helm of Dakota Ridge’s boys basketball program. Puccio, a 2000 graduate of Green Mountain High School, is in also in his sixth season as the head coach at Standley Lake.
“Curi was a great player and he is doing a great job here,” Puccio said. “They play great. They are hard to guard. I like that team a lot.”
Yutzy and Puccio played against each other in high school and when both were at Division II college programs. They actually played together for a semipro basketball team — Colorado Crossover — eight years ago before both got their head coaching gigs.
“Puccio is a wonderful coach. He gets the most out of his kids every single year,” Yutzy said. “He is a heck of a coach and a heck of a person.”
Dakota Ridge continues conference play at 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 10, when it host area rival Columbine (3-6, 1-1 in league).
“We’ve done a lot of great things, but we still have a lot more to do,” Flores said. “We’ve got a lot of room to grow. We can still get a lot better.”
The Rebels played an extremely challenging non-league schedule that featured three 5A teams currently ranked in the top 10 of the CHSAANow.com poll, along with 4A’s top-ranked Valor Christian. Columbine showed it could be in the mix for a league title after handing Standley Lake its first league defeat coming off winter break Jan. 4. The Gators were outscored 31-18 in the fourth quarter in the loss to the Rebels.
“We’ve got to do some things better,” Puccio said. “The effort was there tonight, minus some spots in the first quarter. I thought the guys played really hard tonight.”
Standley Lake’s next contest is at home against Arvada West (6-3, 2-0) at 7 p.m. Friday, Jan. 10.
Standley Lake senior Dylan Critchfield, right, goes up for a shot over Dakota Ridge junior Alden Erickson during the first half Tuesday night. (Dennis Pleuss)
