Littleton’s defense pitched a shutout in its first game of 2015. More photos. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

LITTLETON — These Lions look to be headed in the right direction, and, at least as of Zero Week, they have their offseason to thank for it.

Noah McGhee ran for three touchdowns and 117 yards as Littleton beat Golden 21-0 to open the football season under a dark blue Colorado sky that slowly faded to black.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” McGhee said after the game, “but, hey, I’m excited we got this first one, and hopefully we can keep that going.”

Dating back to last season, it is Littleton’s fifth win in six games. For the Lions, who went 5-25 from 2010-12, that is a big deal. Littleton has steadily improved since that period, going 4-6 in head coach Kurt Krantz’s first season in 2013, and then 5-5 last year.

This summer, with improvements to Littleton High School and its surrounding facilities underway, the football program was forced to the nearby middle school.

“It was a tough summer,” said Krantz, who estimated that roughly 30 percent of his players were unable to attend due to that, or other reasons.

And yet, the seniors and Krantz said the summer — tough or not — was excellent in terms of workouts and team chemistry.

“We gelled so much in the offseason,” said McGhee, who is one of Littleton’s captains. “We had great lifting sessions, we had great conditioning. It was the best we’ve had probably since I’ve been here.”

Added senior Ethen Vasquez, another captain: “Everybody was there, they were on time. Everybody was pushing themselves through pain, whatever they had. They were just going hard.”

Littleton’s Noah McGhee reaches for the end zone to score his second of three touchdowns. More photos. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

It’s one game, but Littleton looked surprisingly sharp for a first outing — an outing that, since it was in Zero Week, came just 11 days after the start of practice.

Yes, the first quarter was sluggish. On both sides. In three minutes, the two teams turned the ball over a combined four times deep inside Golden territory.

But, as the second quarter dawned, Littleton cut out the mistakes. And handed the ball off to McGhee, who has all the makings of a star.

McGhee rushed for 1,191 yards and nine touchdowns as a junior. In the spring, he won the 100-meter dash at the Class 4A state track meet, and was second in the 200.

Thursday, his first score of 2015 came on a 1-yard plunge with 8:16 remaining in the half.

Golden and Littleton continued to exchange jabs as the game wore on, but nothing really landed. That is, until the third quarter, when Littleton forced Golden to punt with seven minutes to go. Vasquez broke through the protection and blocked that punt. With his facemask.

“Coach was telling me, ‘Go in there and make a play,’ so I just went in there and made a play,” Vasquez said. “I tried to put my hands up and I saw it, and it just hit me right in the facemask.

“Our whole team just got energized and it was going off from there.”

Indeed, the next play, McGhee burst around the right side of the line and stretched out past the goal line for his second score, a 10-yard run with 6:44 to go in the third. He added his third score on the first play of the fourth quarter, another 1-yard run.

“I just had to be patient,” McGhee said. “We have some new guys on the line, but I just had to stay patient and go 100 percent.”

Littleton’s defense stood out, intercepting four passes, and notching five sacks. The Lions held Golden to fewer than 100 yards, including just 30 rushing.

“We’re good, we’re fast,” Krantz said. “Our motto is, ‘Play fast, hard and physical.’ They got it and they get it.”

Golden showed some flashes on Thursday, including senior wideout/defensive back Brandon Bowker, who had 53 total yards and was electric at times. The Demons, coming off their best season since 2010, look to be improved from last year.

More photos. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

LITTLETON — Noah McGhee had three touchdowns as Littleton beat Golden 21-0 in a Class 4A football game on Thursday.

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GREENWOOD VILLAGE — Cherry Creek field hockey, ranked No. 5 in the preseason, beat Mountain Vista 6-0 on Thursday.

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Links

• Live scoreboard
• Preseason rankings
• Top-10 schedule & scores
• Full schedule & scoreboard | @ColoHSFootball
• Live game schedule

The live event will begin at 6:30 p.m. on Friday.
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Live coverage

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MONTROSE — Fruita Monument’s Troy Dangler shot a 66 to win the Montrose Invitational on Thursday.

Grand Junction won the team title, shooting a 226. Fruita Monument was second, seven strokes back.

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Event type: Triangular
Host: Elizabeth

DENVER — Miranda Goepfert went 3-for-3 with three RBIs as Dakota Ridge softball beat Mullen 6-1 on Wednesday.

Dakota Ridge (2-0), the No. 10 team in Class 5A softball, also got a big game from Carlye Levy, who pitched all seven innings in the win. She struck out six, and allowed just three hits and one unearned run. Levy also had two RBIs at the plate.

Mullen, ranked No. 9 in 4A, is now 1-1.

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Pomona football is looking to “bust down that door” in the postseason. (Pam Wagner/CHSAANow.com)

[dropcap]J[/dropcap]ake Moretti and his Pomona football teammates have had just about enough of the recurring theme that is the Class 5A state playoffs.

Since advancing to the state semifinals back in 2011, the Panthers have been on the cusp of returning over the past three seasons. But each time Pomona was turned away in the quarterfinal round, a trend that the squad is eager to end in 2015.

“It’s frustrating. The entire team feels that way,” said Jake Moretti, an all-state offensive tackle as a sophomore who committed to Ohio State over the summer. “We’ve been in that same spot quite a few years now, and we need to get to the point that we bust down that door and get to our final destination.”

Last fall Pomona upended its first two playoff opponents before running into a buzzsaw in Valor Christian. The Eagles scored a pair of touchdowns in all four quarters on their way to a 56-34 victory. Valor eventually lost in the title game to Cherry Creek.

The Panthers opened last fall by playing the two eventual state finalists, splitting the set on their way to a 9-3 season. Never one to take the easy road, coach Jay Madden has the same two teams on the schedule to kick off the 2015 campaign.

Pomona visits Valor Christian on Sept. 4 before hosting Cherry Creek on Sept. 11.

“I just think you only get nine games, you might as well make them all fun. Why not challenge yourself right away and find out what you’re made of?” Madden asked. “Our kids can’t wait — we’re excited about it. Those are two real tough teams. Our defense is going to have to carry us.”

Speaking of the defense, Pomona is expecting big things on that side of the ball this season. The Panthers started eight sophomores in the quarterfinal round, meaning that the experience factor is now working in the team’s favor instead of against it.

“You can’t be expecting to beat Valor with eight sophomore starters on defense,” Madden said. “Now those kids are all juniors and those kids are ready to go. The growing pains of last year should pay dividends this year.”

Elijah Leyva led Pomona with 8.5 sacks a year ago as a junior, and the defensive end/linebacker hybrid is excited to see what the squad can do. Leyva said the postseason loss to Valor Christian has stayed with the team, especially since the Panthers played the Eagles so tough in the season opener.

“We had a good regular season, but I think honestly we just kind of lost track a bit of our edge last year,” he said. “This year is totally different. It’s good motivation to stay strong the whole season.”

Offensively Pomona graduated quarterback Justin Roberts and touchdown-machine Isaac Marquez, who led the team in receiving and was second in rushing yards. Sophomore Ryan Marquez will step in at quarterback, while a potent 1-2 punch of sophomore Max Borghi and junior Cameron Gonzales will pace the ground game.

Jake Moretti will be an anchor on Pomona’s line. (Pam Wagner/CHSAANow.com)

“Cameron is more of a downhill runner and Max is one of the fastest guys in the state,” Moretti said. “It’s just a great combo to have.”

The offensive line graduated four starters, including a pair of all-state players in Dillon Middlemiss and Connor Pierson. Moretti is the veteran of the group as a junior, though Madden said the rest of the line isn’t lacking for depth or competition.

With the season ready to kick off this week for a handful of teams around the state, the Panthers are optimistic about what the future will hold. So is the rest of the state. Pomona opened at No. 3 in the preseason poll, just behind Valor Christian and Cherry Creek.

Moretti said the team has rediscovered its edge, and another tough schedule will only help to better prepare Pomona for what lies ahead.

“I think to get over the hump we’ve just go to do all the little things right that we didn’t do last year,” Leyva said. “We can’t make the mistakes and we’ve got to play our best ball at the end of the year.”

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Big-school football preview

• Preseason rankings
• Season Start Date: Aug. 27
• Postseason begins: Nov. 7
• State Championship: Dec. 5, 5A and 4A at Sports Authority Field at Mile High; 3A at home site

Defending Champions:

• 5A: Cherry Creek
• 4A: Pine Creek
• 3A: Pueblo East

Returning All-State Athletes:

• Class 5A: TeQuan Baker, Sr., Doherty (2nd team); Alec Barnes, Sr., Regis Jesuit (2nd); David Imola, Sr., Cherry Creek (2nd); Todd Jones, Sr., Boulder (1st); Carlo Kemp, Sr., Fairview (1st); Patrick Moody, Jr., Chaparral (2nd); Jake Moretti, Jr., Pomona (1st); Jonathan Van Diest, Jr., Cherry Creek (2nd).
• Class 4A: Conlan Berger, Sr., Longmont (2nd team); Zach Castellucci, Sr., Pueblo South (2nd); JoJo Domann, Sr., Pine Creek (1st); Isaiah Fields, Sr., Falcon (1st); Ben Freeman, Sr., Fort Collins (2nd); Adrian King, Sr., George Washington (2nd); Nathan Leithead, Sr., Pine Creek (2nd); Jeremy Lujan, Sr., Dakota Ridge (1st); Isiah Pannuzio, Sr., Pueblo South (1st); Corte Tapia, Jr., Windsor; Jack Wibbels, Sr., Pine Creek (1st).
• Class 3A: Alonso Archuleta, Sr., Roosevelt (2nd team); Beau Beattie, Sr., Discovery Canyon (2nd); Cameron Brown, Sr., D’Evelyn (2nd); Bruno Derose, Sr., Pueblo East (1st); Lalo Diaz-Alvarez, Sr., Pueblo East; Franny Gonzales, Sr., Fort Morgan (1st); Chris Helbig, Sr., Holy Family (1st); Tate Kembel, Jr., Fort Morgan (2nd); Isaac Maestas, Jr., Palisade (2nd); Alex Mai, Sr., Fort Morgan (2nd); Zach Manchester, Sr., Canon City (2nd); Daniel Martin, Sr., Pueblo East (1st); Toby McBride, Sr., Fort Morgan (1st); Jonny Ponce, Sr., Delta (2nd); Davis Price, Sr., Evergreen (1st); Bryson Torres, Jr., Pueblo East.

(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)

AURORA — The details of the RPI formula to be used in postseason qualification are starting to come into focus.

On Wednesday, the CHSAA staff formalized the outline to be used by all team sports committees as it pertains to the Rating Percentage Index (RPI) formula.

“The membership, for years, has been requesting a more transparent system that would provide more consistency among all sports and state qualifiers,” said CHSAA commissioner Paul Angelico. “We believe the RPI system, as it is set to be implemented, will accomplish this.”

Already, CHSAA’s Board of Directors has issued a policy mandating the use of an RPI for postseason qualification in all team sports beginning with the 2016-17 season in an effort to find more consistency across team sports. The heart of that RPI formula has already been announced, and it deals with a team’s winning percentage (WP), the winning percentage of a team’s opponents (OWP), and the winning percentage of the opponents of that team’s opponents (OOWP).

Specifically, the formula used will be:

RPI = (¼ × WP) + (½ × OWP) + (¼ × OOWP)

The biggest development from Wednesday is that all team sports, save for football, will not use a modifier for teams playing across classifications. This is because historical data examples run over many sports and multiple years have consistently shown that a classification modifier already exists within the formula.

On average, there is a 15 percent difference between the RPI of a team from one class to the next. For example, data has shown that the average RPI of a 4A team is 15 percent higher than that of a 3A team. This is also true when comparing a 3A team to a 2A team, and so on.

Moreover, all team sports, save for football, feature many mixed-classification leagues which are made necessary by geography. That is prohibitive when considering whether or not to use a modifier for classification within the RPI formula, as it consistently gave those teams competing up a classification a distinct advantage.

Football, as many know, is another animal altogether. It has seven total classifications, does not have near as many mixed-class leagues, and, perhaps more importantly, has far and away the fewest regular season games of any sport. And those factors are why it was deemed that a classification modifier is necessary in football. The modifier will be a 15 percent difference per class.

In addition, football teams competing down a classification will have a one-time exception allowing the first scheduled game against a team from a lower classification to count as the next-highest classification.

Other major details of the postseason process to be used by team sports committees:

• League champions will be protected and automatically qualify for the postseason.
• The remaining postseason qualifiers will be determined by the RPI rankings.
• Committees will set their own seeding criteria, but will start with the RPI as their primary consideration. Included in that is the option to simply seed their brackets according to the RPI.
• Suggested criteria the seeding committees can use, in no particular order:
  • Geography
  • A coaches’ poll, conducted by CHSAANow.com
  • Head-to-head
  • Common opponents

Further work remains to be done, but sport committee meetings begin in October. Things will begin to take a firm shape at that point, with only the final hurdle of the Legislative Council meetings next January and April remaining.

Niwot won 4A girls track’s championship. (Whitney Webermeier/CHSAANow.com)

It’s been a good three-year span for Maurice Henriques. After capturing a third-straight Class 4A girls state championship for the Cougars last May, Henriques was named the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association girls’ coach of the year.

The committee selects one boys and one girls representative from each state and the District of Columbia before selecting the overall winners.

According to a press release from Niwot, the association is in accumulation of over 9,000 coaches across the country.

“Coach Mo, is an integral part to the success of the Niwot Track and Field team. This past season was the third consecutive state championship for the Niwot girls track team. Coach Mo has made such a big impact on the student athletes at Niwot — not only on the track, but in life as well,” Niwot athletic director Chase McBride said in the release. “He has the ability to get the most out of student-athletes, take them to levels they can’t reach on their own, and does it all with class and hard work.

“He walks the hallways and kids flock to him. He is respected statewide and the newly national recognition is beyond well deserved.”

Henriques’ coaching career dates back to Denver North High School where he coached for three years before moving on as an assistant to Valor Christian. From there he took the head coach position at Fairview. After four years there, he moved on to Niwot.

Henriques was also a football coach for 14 years at various high schools.