MANITOU SPRINGS — Manitou Springs High School will be looking for its fourth head football coach since the retirement of George Rykovich at the conclusion of the 2006 season.
Dan Gieck, who led the Mustangs to the 2A state semifinals, resigned as coach in mid-January, igniting a search that the district hopes to have completed at the conclusion of their spring break period.
Gieck cited a struggle to balance the job alongside his work maintaining district-wide facilities and his desire to spend time with his family as the reason for his departure.
The Mustangs have had trouble finding consistency with the head coaching position since Rykovich retired. John McGee took over the team for three seasons before transitioning into the athletic director job. He was succeeded by arguably the greatest football player in school history in Justin Armour. Armour coached the Mustangs for two seasons (2010-11) before resigning to open his own restaurant in Manitou.
After Armour resigned, Gieck emerged as a popular candidate amongst the students and the football staff.
His resignation came as a shock to those same staff members who felt that Gieck was going to provide the team with longevity in the position. Rykovich coached the Mustangs for 36 years before his retirement, making a carousel of coaches unfamiliar territory for the school.
Armour — who was employed by Manitou when he was the head coach — did say via text message on Wednesday that he will not return to the job.
AIR FORCE ACADEMY — Last year in the Class 3A boys state basketball tournament, Holy Family was given a lesson by Eaton.
The Tigers, who came in as the top-seeded team in this year’s edition, have a different mind-set.
They jumped out to a 14-0 lead in Thursday’s quarterfinals and kept building as they advanced to the semis with a convincing 70-40 victory over Brush.
“We were definitely prepared,” junior guard Luke Golter said.
Were they ever. He was among the leaders in that aspect.
Golter was electric from the outside, nailing a trio of 3-pointers en route to a game-high 23 points.
“We’ve been talking about playing in the big arena,” Tigers coach Pete Villecco said of preparing for the Great 8 at the Air Force Academy.
Holy Family had played in the previous two state tournaments but is still seeking the state title. They got off to a strong start not only by scoring quickly.
“We told the kids to find their feet,” Villecco said of focusing on shooting form.
They also did it by forcing Bruch into misses on its first nine tries.
“Win every possession – that’s what our mind-set is,” Golter said.
Golter washardly the only offensive contributor for the Tigers. Ryan Willis had 18 points, 12 coming from beyond the arc, and Chris Helbig added 11.
“We have so many weapons,” Golter said.
Holy Family’s boys and girls teams both come in as the top seeds in the Great 8. That, Velleccio said, is great for the school.
“The spirit in the building is at an all-time high,” Velleccio said.
It’s given both teams motivation. Golter said that what the boys team needs to keep the run going.
“Just play with the same swagger,” he said of the goal of keeping the confidence level up.
The Tigers play Colorado Springs Christian at 5:30 in Friday evening’s first boys semifinal.
“Our expectations are that we’re going to work our tails off,” Velleccio vowed.
Colorado Academy 67, Moffat County 62
The Class 3A boys state basketball tournament kicked off with a barnburner at the Air Force Academy Thursday morning.
Colorado Academy overcame a nine-point second-half deficit to overtake Moffat County down the stretch 67-62.
The lead changed hands three times in the final minute and a half with Chris Kuelling’s 3-pointer with 32 seconds remaining giving the Mustangs the lead for good. Colorado Academy sealed the win with a steal and basket by Christian Hyatt with seconds remaining.
Jack Buckmelter led the Mustangs with 28 points, offsetting a matching performance by Moffat County’s Kort Hathhorn.
Colorado Springs Christian 69, Denver Science & Tech 49
With three scorers in double figures, the Lions stretched a 32-19 halftime lead into a comfortable victory.
Justin Engesser paced the Lions with 17 points; Dante Fewell added 12 and Nic Doherty 11.
Deron Harrell led all scorers with 19 for the Knights while Nathaniel Cox chipped in 16.
Faith Christian 50, Manitou Springs 30
The Eagles led throughout, holding an eight-point halftime advantage which grew to 37-25 entering the fourth quarter.
Two players were particularly dominant on the offensive end, Gabriel Hegarty scoring from the outside and Grant Harkness doing damage underneath. Hegarty led all scorers with 13 points; Harkness chipped in 12 and pulled down a game-high six rebounds.
Chase Megyeri paced the Mustangs with 12 points and five boards.
Faith Christian goes up against Colorado Academy in Friday’s late semifinal at 8:30 p.m. Manitou Springs and Moffat County play a 1:15 p.m. consolation game.
Akron’s Brady Baer is now Colorado’s all-time leading scorer. (Bill Sabo/CSU-Pueblo)
PUEBLO — Move over Brian Wood, Brady Baer is now sitting on the throne.
Baer, a senior at Akron High School, scored 40 points Thursday to become the Colorado boys basketball’s all-time scoring leader.
With a huge boost from Baer, Akron beat Meeker 81-64 in a first round Class 2A state game at Colorado State University-Pueblo’s Massari Arena.
“This means a lot, but I think I will reflect on it a little more after the state tournament,” said the 6-foot-2, 180-pound Baer. “Now, I’m just focused on winning. That’s the No. 1 thing on my mind right now.”
Akron’s Brady Baer set the career scoring record with this shot. (Bill Sabo/CSU-Pueblo)
Baer now has 2,562 points in his stellar career. Wood held the record at 2,551 points which he set while playing at Buena Vista from 1997-2001. Wood is now an assistant coach under his dad, Bob, at Mountain Vista.
“The last four years we are not where we are at without him,” said Akron coach Greg Clarkson, who has coached Baer since he was in seventh grade. “He’s the best player I’ve ever coached and the best player I ever will coach.”
Baer came into the state tourney this week averaging 31 points a game this season for No. 3-seeded Akron, which improved to 24-1 after its win Thursday.
He broke the record with 1:55 to play in the third quarter on a 3-point shot. Baer had eight points after the first quarter, 23 at halftime and 30 after three quarters.
“(Today), I was able to get to the basket which got me going and my shooting came with it,” Baer said. “I’m definitely glad I got this record out of the way. I was tossing and turning (Wednesday night) thinking about that and winning and now I can just focus on winning.”
Akron plays the winner of the game between No. 2 Lutheran and No. 7 Holyoke at 8:30 p.m. Thursday. Akron is trying capture its first Class 2A state boys basketball title since 1989.
Baer scored 442 points his freshman season, 579 as a sophomore and 758 as a junior. He has scored 783 so far this season.
Baer also has another record in his sights. He’s averaging 27.4 points per game over his career, which is 0.1 points off the record held by Niwot’s Wayland Harris (1988-89). Baer’s career high is 55 points, something he did against Merino on Jan. 18.
(Bill Sabo/CSU-Pueblo)
Clarkson is quick to point out Baer is far from one-dimensional.
“Ever since he was in second grade he has wanted to play basketball at the next level (in college),” Clarkson said. “Once we finish practice, he will stay at least another hour trying to improve his game. Plus, he is an unselfish player. He averages six assists and six rebounds a game and wants everybody to get shots because he doesn’t want everything to be about him. He’s a special player, and all he is cares about is doing what he can to help our team win.”
Baer admitted basketball has been a constant in his life since as long as he can remember.
“My dad (Alan) put a basketball in my hand when I was very young and I have always wanted to play college basketball,” said Baer said. “That’s my goal (to play in college) and I work to reach that goal every day by practicing.”
Baer is undecided where he will play college basketball, but his talent hasn’t gone unnoticed.
“Chadron (Neb.) State is looking at me and so is CSU-Pueblo and Colorado Mesa University,” Baer said. “I have no idea where I’m going to go, but I’m really looking forward to playing college basketball wherever I land.”
AIR FORCE ACADEMY — This particular Lamar girls basketball team had never qualified for the Class 3A state tournament.
The seniors, in particular, knew what to expect, however. They had attended the state tournament as spectators in previous years. And they knew the history of Lamar girls basketball.
The team came in to Thursday’s state quarterfinals with a mission, which began with an easy 48-27 victory over Peak to Peak to advance to Friday’s state semifinals.
The five seniors, two of whom come off the bench and many of whom have started since they were freshmen, spent their youth playing whatever sport was in season.
“These seniors have grown up together,” Savages coach Erik Melgoza said. “They’re like sisters.”
“I think it really helps us that we’ve played so long together,” senior point guard Chelsea Vallejos said.
Vallejos was a big factor in Lamar’s ability to set the tone early and establish control. She hit a 3-pointer to give the Savages an 8-6 lead. More importantly, she was effective as Lamar’s floor general.
The Savages’ defense frustrated the Pumas in the second quarter as Peak to Peak got off only four field goal attempts in falling behind 23-12. The Savages pushed the pace in extending their lead throughout the second half.
“The kids followed the game plan,” Melgoza said, allowing him to go four deep to his bench and give his starters a bit of rest.
Vallejos, who tied for team-high scoring honors with Taylor Wertz as each scored 13, was just as effective driving to the basket as she was from the outside.
“We want to be able to drive, usually down the middle,” she said of challenging the Pumas’ taller front court.
Lamar won four consecutive state titles in the mid- to late-1990s.
“A lot of these girls were little girls when they won those,” Melgoza said.
But they look on the gym walls and take in that history.
Lamar’s likely semifinal opponent is Holy Family, which has won five of the last six 3A state titles. Vallejos said her team will take in the Tigers’ quarterfinal game with great interest.
“We’ll watch their game (at 4 p.m. against Eaton),” Vallejos said. “We’re not going to mess around.”
“I feel like these girls are prepared,” Melgoza said.
Sterling 57, Bishop Machebeuf 44
In the day’s first game, the Tigers built a 31-20 halftime lead and made it stand up, matching the Buffaloes basket for basket in the second half.
Taylor Knudson and Kylie Chavez paced the Tigers with 16 and 15 points, respectively. Maggie Smith’s 13 points were tops for Machebeuf.
Holy Family 52, Eaton 30
The Tigers opened up a close game by going on an run 8-1 in the first four minutes of the second quarter to take a 26-19 halftime lead, then outscored Eaton 17-6 in the third to pull away.
The Chavez sisters keyed the attack, with sophomore Katie scoring 18 points while Lindsey, a senior, added 15. Between them they hit six 3-pointers. Maggie Spitzer added to a balanced attack with 13 points.
The Reds had five players score between four and seven points, led by Bailey Schumacher.
Holy Family plays Lamar at 7 p.m. Friday In the semifinals. Eaton and Peak to Peak play an 8:45 a.m. consolation game.
Pagosa Springs 48, Manitou Springs 34
The Pirates took advantage of cold shooting by the Mustangs early, holding them to seven first-half points in building a 12-point advantage.
Manitou Springs briefly cut its deficit to single digits in the second half but baskets by Taylor Strobehecker and Payton Shahan helped the second-seeded Pirates begin a run down the stretch. Shelby Megyeri’s 10 points were tops for the Mustangs.
Shahan led a balanced attack with 13 points as eight Pirates got into the scoring column.
Pagosa Springs meets Sterling in Friday’s first semifinal at 4 p.m. Manitou Springs and Bishop Machebeuf meet in the consolation round at 11:45 a.m.
In it’s second game of the season, Denver South lost to Eaglecrest by 22 points. In its fourth game, South lost to Lakewood by 23.
Yes, South resides in Class 4A and those are 5A schools. Yet, this was a squad with high expectations. The Rebels had opened the 2013-14 boys basketball campaign ranked No. 4 in CHSAANow.com’s preseason poll. But 10 days into its season, South was 2-5, only owned an in-state win over 3A Faith Christian, and had those two early routs on its resume.
“Through the whole process, we were just building for March,” first-year coach Malik Fletcher said on Monday. “We didn’t care who was the best team in December, January. We wanted to be the team that was playing in March.
“So the kids kept that concept and, even when we were struggling, the main thing was that they had to own it,” Fletcher said. “We knew in our minds that it would turn around, we would get to that point that where we’d be playing good basketball.”
Since that 2-5 start, Denver South is 16-3. Those three losses — to Thomas Jefferson, Denver West and Denver East — came by a combined seven points.
Asked for a turning point, Fletcher pinpoints a 71-65 win over Pueblo East on Jan. 10.
Up until then, the Rebels were missing a few football players, as well as transfers who had their eligibility restricted to 50 percent of the season. They didn’t have everyone back against Pueblo East, but “it was getting to a point where we were starting to see the rest of the team,” Fletcher said.
“We didn’t even take our full squad to Pueblo,” Fletcher said. “But winning that game was big for the kids, for them to believe and see it — winning in that gym, with a great coach and a great program like that.”
Now, South is in its first final four since 1970. The players are well aware of that fact.
“We’ve talked about the unique history of just South itself, the basketball program,” said Fletcher, who had been an assistant at South prior to taking over this season. “A lot of the kids we have right now, we brought them in when we were freshmen, and they started getting the message early on that they were going to be successful when they graduated.
“These last few weeks we have reiterated the importance of doing something special with South and with Colorado sports itself.”
South gets key contributions from all over. Included are guards Tyson Purifoy (12.5 points, 4.3 rebounds, 3.0 assists), Lorenzo Snoddy (11.2 points, 6.8 rebounds) and Antonio Garcia (9.8 points, 4.2 assists).
Make no mistake, though: The Rebels are led by ultra-athletic senior Ibrahim Sylla, a Northern Colorado commit who averages 14.8 points, 14.7 rebounds and 3.8 blocks per game.
(Matt Mathewes/MVPSportsPics.com)
In South’s Great 8 win over Thomas Jefferson, the 6-foot-8, 190-pound Sylla was a monster. His dunks so abused the basket during the first quarter that he ended up moving the hoop 3 inches off its moorings and causing a 10-minute delay. Sylla finished with 20 points and 13 rebounds, but also had a game-clinching steal in the final moments.
Fletcher said Sylla’s greatest strengths were “definitely the physical attributes and gifts that he has.”
“But,” Fletcher quickly added, “what has really impressed me is his growth and how much he continues to grow. It’s exciting just to see how far he is away from maxing out and hitting his ceiling.”
To top everything off, Sylla has an aggressive streak not common in high school players.
“I mean he’s intense, he’s aggressive. He really doesn’t back down,” Fletcher said. “Once he’s engaged, there’s no one else around that can probably match with his intensity along with his physical attributes.”
Poudre was a No. 3 seed in last year’s Class 5A girls basketball tournament and expecting to do big things.
Then Castle View, a No. 6 seed, hit a desperation 3-point shot at the buzzer to send their second-round game to overtime, and blew out the Impalas with a 13-3 advantage in that extra period. Boom. Season over.
In the summer, senior McKenzie McDaniel tore her ACL. Early in the 2013-14 season, McDaniel’s twin, Ashley, appeared to break her hand. Then star Myanne Hamm, also a senior, tweaked her knee.
Meanwhile, Poudre — once again expecting big things out of its season — had started 4-3. Those losses? 41-40 to Dakota Ridge on a last-second 3-point shot Dec. 11, 65-58 to Grandview in double overtime on Dec. 13 and 52-46 to rival Fossil Ridge.
“We did have a little bit of, ‘What’s going to happen next?,’” Poudre coach Curtis Glesmann said Wednesday. “Fossil was kind of the low point. We had a little ‘Woe is me’ feeling, and it was just really tough to deal with as a team.”
So there was perhaps no team in the state that had a better-timed winter break. In Poudre’s case, it was a 19-day stretch which fell just after the loss to Fossil Ridge.
“We talked over Christmas and kind of decided to have a reset,” Glesmann said.
Poudre emerged from the break with wins of 17, 18, 24 and 16 points. McKenzie McDaniel was back after just six months of rehab. (“An amazing rehab,” Glesmann said. “I’ve never seen a kid come back that strong.”) Ashley McDaniel’s injury turned out to be a ligament tear she could play through. Hamm was healthy.
The Impalas did suffer two further one-point losses before the regular season ended — one in overtime at Monarch, another at Horizon — but things started to go Poudre’s way after the break.
“The break was absolutely at a good time,” Glesmann said. “We got healthier, just kind of had a mental regroup and were kind of able to come out strong. We’ve been going good ever since.”
In the summer, Glesmann figured his team would be among the state’s best — so long as they were healthy. Now healthy, the Impalas are. They find themselves in their first final four since 1978, and have already set the school record for most wins in a season (21).
Asked if his team knew how long it’d been since the last time Poudre was in the state semifinals, Glesmann said, “They didn’t know the exact dates, but they kind of knew the recent history. … We knew that we were kind of going into uncharted waters and going to places Poudre hasn’t been before.”
Hamm and the McDaniels have led the Impalas there.
Hamm, a Colorado State recruit, averages 13.9 points, 5.4 rebounds, 2.9 steals and 1.6 assists per game.
“A lot of kids will be really good at one or maybe two things in high school, but she does everything well,” Glesmann said. “She can kind of pick her spots and almost be a little bit of a chameleon and provide what we need on any given night.”
Ashley McDaniel is averaging 11.8 points and 5.4 rebounds, while McKenzie McDaniel is at 7.0 points and 4.9 rebounds.
“They’re not a very hard team to coach,” Glesmann said. “Their leadership is definitely a key factor in this run.”
Poudre will play Regis Jesuit in Thursday’s first semifinal at CU which tips off at 7. Regis, the defending champion, is loaded with talent, including six Division I recruits.
“We’re there to win the game. That’s been the goal all along,” Glesmann said. “I thought we would be at this point at some point, having to play Regis. They were the state champs last year, and they have everyone back. We knew they’d make a run, too. So we figured if we wanted to win state, we’d have to beat Regis at some point or the other. I guess Thursday’s the day.”
Heading into this weekend’s Class 2A state tournament, Akron’s Brady Baer is 30 points shy of breaking boys basketball’s career scoring record in this state.
Through 24 games this season, Baer has 2,522 points. Buena Vista’s Brian Wood — now an assistant under his dad, Bob, at Mountain Vista — holds the record at 2,551. Wood played at Buena Vista from 1997-2001.
Baer scored 442 points his freshman season, 579 as a sophomore and 758 as a junior. He has scored 743 so far this season.
Baer also has another record in his sights. He’s averaging 27.4 points per game over his career, which is 0.1 points off the record held by Niwot’s Wayland Harris (1988-89).
Akron, a No. 3 seed, plays No. 6 Meeker at 1:15 p.m. in Thursday’s first round at CSU-Pueblo. Baer is averaging 31.0 points this season. His career high is 55 points, something he did against Merino on Jan. 18.
With 2A’s consolation setup, Baer is guaranteed at least one additional game after Thursday’s opening round.
The girls record is held by Ridgway’s Tracy Hill at 2,934 points.
The following is a statement in regard to an invitation Regis Jesuit girls basketball received to play in a postseason tournament:
“Under the Colorado High School Activities Association bylaws, playing in a tournament outside the sport’s season is not allowed. Regis Jesuit was provided with the option of competing as a club team at the event. But, under CHSAA bylaws, they would be prohibited from competition as a high school team after this Saturday’s state championship game. The bylaws do not provide an option for a waiver of that rule.”
