Mountain Vista’s Ben Antonsen serves to Boulder’s Kap Smith on Thursday. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
DENVER — Kap Smith didn’t let the tension of playing in his first Class 5A state tennis tournament get to him.
The Boulder High School freshman cruised to a 6-0, 6-2 victory over Brian Ross of Chatfield in his first-round match Thursday, then played the comeback mode as he rallied to defeat Ben Antonsen of Mountain Vista in their three-set quarterfinal.
After losing the first set 7-6, including a 7-4 tiebreaker, Smith found himself trailing Antonsen 3-0 in the second set.
At the changeover, “I was thinking about my aunt,” he said. “She’s sick. I just said, ‘I’m thinking about you.’”
That was all the motivation he needed as he won the next six games, taking the set, then held off Antonsen 6-4 in the third set.
“I think that’s my first three-setter (of the season),” he said of having to go the distance in the match.
Smith admitted that the atmosphere at the Gates Tennis Center got to him early.
“I didn’t expect everything here,” he said of the spectacle of the state tournament.
After falling behind in the second set of the quarterfinals, “I was too pumped up,” he said. So, “I just slowed everything down.”
Smith faces a tall order on Friday’s semifinals. He’ll meet Ethan Hillis of Cherry Creek, last year’s state champion at No. 3 singles.
What did Smith take from his first day?
“My fight and spirit,” he said. “I’ll do it for Boulder High.”
Traditional power Cherry Creek continued its dominance in the state tennis ranks. The Bruins tallied 21 points to take the first-day lead in the team race over Denver East by five points, with Fairview third with 15 points. Smith helped Boulder to a tie for fourth with 12 points.
The semifinals, weather permitting, begin at 9 a.m. Friday at Gates Tennis Center.
Rain forced a long delay at the 4A state tennis championships. (Dan Mohrmann)
While the 5A tournament split into two sites in an effort to avoid rain that never materialized, the 4A tournament in Pueblo wasn’t as lucky.
Play was suspended at 10:08 a.m. with just 10 matches completed. It didn’t resume again until 3:50 p.m., as tournament officials had to wait for the courts to fully dry out. The delay lasted 5 hours and 42 minutes.
The tournament resumed for exactly an hour and a half before more rain caused the rest of the first day of play to be postponed to Friday. The first round was not completed, but 15 further matches finished after the delay.
Through the 25 matches completed Thursday, Kent Denver held the team lead with four points. Colorado Academy, Niwot and Air Academy are all tied in second place with three points. Lewis-Palmer, Greeley Central and Aspen all have two team points.
Further delays on Saturday — in both Pueblo and Denver — are possible. Forecasts for both areas show overnight rain which is expected to continue into the morning.
WESTMINSTER — Westminster scored 28 points in the second quarter en route to a 42-0 victory over Warriors (Montbello) in a rain-soaked game Thursday night.
Smoky Hill field hockey is being coached by Natalie Foerster, an alum of the school. (Courtesy photo)
[dropcap]F[/dropcap]ield hockey, first sanctioned in 1997, has stayed constant with about 13 programs around the state. On the surface, the numbers haven’t changed.
The coaches know that’s not the truth.
Kent Denver coach Kathy James, a longtime presence in the sport and the head of the winningest program in state history, says interest in the sport has grown immensely.
Kent Denver has won nine of the 17 championships in field hockey’s sanctioned history. (Matt Daniels/MaxPreps)
“We don’t have a lack of girls,” James said. “Right now our biggest problem is that we have so many girls that want to play, that we end up having to turn some away. There are school programs that it’s not feasible for them to carry 25 girls on the team and so they have to cut some girls.
"Anybody who wants to play, we want them to have the opportunity.”
In the past six years, two club teams formed, the Denver Field Hockey Club and Club Lewy. James, a coach of the Denver Field Hockey Club, said the senior class’ team has fourteen girls from seven different schools this year.
“They are traveling together to compete at the U.S. Field Hockey Festival, which is the largest field hockey tournament in the world,” James said. “We are in the second highest pool, which means we’re competing against the top-10 clubs in the nation. Even though we’re small, the players are performing very well nationally.”
James added that the caliber of play has grown exponentially since the sport was first sanctioned.
“At that point, it was unheard of for people to get scholarships to D-I programs,” James said. “Now the festival team, we have four Division I athletes with a couple of them with scholarships. We’ve got four or five that are going to top-10 Division III programs.”
Level of play has been upped and numbers in the youth programs have grown. The Denver Field Hockey Club currently has about 50 girls between the age of five and eighth grade in it, while Colorado Springs-based Club Lewy has 20.
St. Mary’s Academy coach Sarah Jacobs, who played for James at Kent before enjoying a successful career at Johns Hopkins University, says the clubs have been huge.
“What’s wonderful now is that there’s full clubs and year-round opportunities to play as well as going around and traveling to tournaments,” Jacobs said. “I think that’s the number one thing that wasn’t included when I was around.”
Several of the high school teams have seen their numbers rise, as well. Last season, 591 girls participated around the state, up from 563 the year prior.
Golden’s program is seeing its highest turnout this season. (Courtesy photo)
Golden coach Marissa Copan is a 2006 graduate of the school and was a member of the first hockey team it fielded. She played at Division III Goucher College in Maryland before returning to her home state to coach. Copan says the 2014 team is the largest in the school’s history with 30 members, but the district will not fund a junior varsity team.
“We are all technically just one big varsity team,” Copan said. “Every single year that I’ve been coaching, more people have been interested. We have girls from eleven different schools.
“There’s only a couple different girls that actually go to Golden, but since we are the only program in Jeffco, a lot of the girls that play lacrosse together or play soccer together, tell their friends and we’ve gotten a pretty big turnout.”
Denver East has long had enormous numbers for field hockey. In 2013, 97 girls tried out for the program. This year, 87 attended tryouts. East carries about 20 girls on each of its four teams.
The Angels’ coach, Elise Landau, another former Division III field hockey player, said East has been fortunate enough to be able to carry a large team, a luxury most don’t have.
“I think we get a lot of girls from different schools that transfer into East that have been playing field hockey in middle school,” Landau said. “We have close to 50 freshmen try out. We have a reputation for not cutting girls, until recently, so mostly the freshmen who try out will come in knowing that they can play the sport and have fun and try something new.”
Smoky Hill coach Natalie Foerster, a 2011 alum of the school who was a member of four semifinal teams in her playing days, says it’s rewarding being part of the Colorado field hockey community again. She has embraced being a first-year head coach in the growing sport.
“I love seeing where we started this season with how much progress we are making,” Foerster said. “Scores may not reflect it, but our girls are getting better and for me, that is a great feeling knowing that the girls are learning and really taking in what we are teaching them.”
We’ve seen Cotopaxi’s Alex Burger score ten total touchdowns in a game. D’Evelyn quarterback Owen Burke threw for more than 530 yards in consecutive weeks. Cheraw’s Tristan Headrick tied the state receiving touchdown record with six. Two players have recorded 99-yard touchdowns runs.
Last Friday, two quarterbacks threw for six touchdowns.
Put it this way: Holy Family quarterback Chris Helbig threw for an eye-popping 491 yards on Sept. 5. That’s just the fourth-best mark this season.
But.
This is how we tally records at the CHSAA office. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
This has undoubtedly been the most closely-followed football season in terms of combing for records. After each week, we literally go through each boxscore to scan for outstanding (perhaps record-setting) performances. Additionally, our partners at MaxPreps — specifically, Gerry Valerio — have been kind enough to create a weekly report which highlights similar individual performances.
In the past, the record book has been solely reliant on schools reporting performances to the CHSAA office. And while we still verify each record-setting performance with the school or coach to ensure the accuracy of the record, finding the data is now largely on us.
“We’ve always relied on schools sending us information,” said CHSAA assistant commissioner Bert Borgman, who has been in charge of CHSAA’s record books for years. “Now, with a vehicle like CHSAANow and a resource like MaxPreps, we are able to go out and find these things ourselves.”
So, yes, there has been a dramatic increase in record book-worthy performances this season. But the reason for the increase likely boils down to this: When you go looking for data, as opposed to waiting for it to come to you, you will inevitably find more of it.
Expect similar record results for the upcoming basketball season. We’re also looking at restarting the volleyball record book, which has sat dormant for a few years.
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Short stuff
Passing this along as a PSA: Boys tennis’ state tournaments will likely be delayed tomorrow. Here’s the plan.
There will be no Stableford scoring system for girls golf next spring. In my mind, this is a move that eventually needs to be made. Alas, not yet.
La Junta beat Lamar in volleyball on Tuesday night. It was their first win over Lamar since 1995, according to the La Junta Tribune-Democrat. “We wanted to end this nightmare and get it over with,” La Junta coach Heath Grantham told the paper afterward.
Two weeks ago, legendary basketball coach Guy Gibbs gave a speech to Regis Jesuit students about his life experiences. Midway through, he brought up CHSAA associate commissioner Tom Robinson, who was his assistant at Regis for 10 years before becoming head coach himself. Gibbs mentioned that he would often turn to Robinson on the bench at crucial points of games for his thoughts. I pointed this out to Tom, who shrugged in his way and said, “Well, I was always sitting there.”
In an email to CHSAA staff this week, a field hockey official who did the Regis Jesuit-Fossil Ridge game complimented the Raiders on their sportsmanship. Regis led 7-1 at halftime, “but instead of racking up an embarrassing score,” the official wrote, “(Regis Jesuit coach) Spencer (Wagner) had his team play a ‘training game’ in the second half. … At no time did they attempt to advance their 7-1 score. … Coaches like Spencer know what absolute sportsmanship is and demonstrated this (Monday).”
2014 Fairview graduate Sam Martin, who holds a few career state receiving records, scored four touchdowns in Miami (Ohio)’s win over UMass on Saturday. The in-state schools made a mistake in not offering him a scholarship.
Grandview grad Kevin Gausman, now with the Baltimore Orioles, started the last home game in Derek Jeter’s career. “That’s pretty incredible!!” he tweeted. Now, he’s in the ALCS.
