Teams: Mullen, Arvada, Englewood, Vista Peak, Ponderosa, Denver North, Denver South, Denver West, Kennedy, Thomas Jefferson, Conifer, D’Evelyn, Evergreen, Golden, Green Mountain, Littleton, Standley Lake, Valor Christian, Wheat Ridge, Colorado Academy, Jefferson Academy, Kent Denver, Lutheran, Machebeuf, Peak to Peak, St. Mary’s Academy.
Teams: Alamosa, Colorado Springs Christian, Florence, Fowler, James Irwin, John Mall, La Junta, La Veta, Manitou Springs, Monte Vista, Pueblo Centennial, Pueblo Central, Pueblo County, Pueblo East, Pueblo South, Pueblo West, Rye, Salida, St. Mary’s, Swink, Trinidad.
Teams: Aspen, Battle Mountain, Coal Ridge, Dolores, Durango, Eagle Valley, Glenwood Springs, Grand Valley, Gunnison, Moffat County, Montrose, Palisade, Rifle, Steamboat Springs.
HIGHLANDS RANCH — Christian Barber couldn’t have asked for a better ending to his last home game at Valor Christian.
The senior for the Eagles mainly served as a courtesy runner in the 10-2 win over Wheat Ridge Thursday afternoon, but his one at-bat ended, well, perfectly.
The game was already well in hand, so the RBI single didn’t mean much to the scoreboard, but it was Barber’s first varsity at-bat of the season. He was told at the beginning of the year that his varsity playing time would be limited at best, so his coaches suggested he try out for track.
And the opportunity was still there to take the diamond and serve as a runner for the CHSAANow.com No. 4-ranked Eagles (15-3 overall, 9-0 Class 4A Jeffco League).
So in his last game at home, to get that hit and drive in that run, he now has a baseball moment that no one can take from him.
“It was awesome,” Barber said. “For the last two years, I’ve been on varsity as a pinch-runner. It was amazing just to be with the guys. I’ve never been with anyone so supportive, even when I left to go to track tryouts. To come in for my last and only at-bat, it was awesome to have their support.”
On top of his season batting average now at 1.000, he also gets to be called a league champion. The Eagles were dominant from the get go, scoring seven runs in the first two innings. Sophomore Luke Ziegler, a Pepperdine commit, was able to cruise on the mound at that point.
“It’s great to pitch with a lead,” Ziegler said. “It definitely relaxes me but I still feel like I need to go out and give it my best, just like it’s a one-run game.”
He went six strong innings, allowing just two runs and striking out seven hitters in the win. With the way he was dealing, the Farmers (11-6, 6-3) were going to have a tough time getting any kind of offense going.
“Offensively, we just have to find a way,” Wheat Ridge coach Adam Miller said. “We just have not swung the bats good enough this week.”
A loss to Evergreen earlier in the week clinched the Jeffco League title for the Eagles, allowing them to concentrate on senior day and getting as many kids playing time as possible.
But the focus was still to sweep league. Even when Valor coach Keith Wahl told his team that everyone would still get playing time, his players expressed their desire to run the Jeffco table.
“It’s important for these guys to come out every day and give their best effort for the brotherhood that we’ve created,” Wahl said. “I love watching this team play. They are an absolute joy to watch on a daily basis.”
Valor still has one game on the schedule as they’ll travel to Cheyenne Mountain to conclude their regular season on Monday.
The Farmers will step on Coors Field Saturday where they’ll take on Monarch in their regular season finale. Then both teams will wait for the final 4A RPI standings to see how their playoff fate looks.
“One thing we’ll be is battle tested,” Miller said. “We had maybe one of the top three or four hardest schedules in 4A so we won’t see anything we haven’t seen on the field, but we have to be able to execute.”
LOVELAND — Even in a game with some uncharacteristic mistakes and unearned runs for both clubs, Class 4A No. 2 Mountain View secured the Northern Conference championship over visiting No. 1 Silver Creek largely on the strength of Holden Bernhardt’s left arm and bat.
Bernhardt, one of the Mountain Lions’ trusty senior twins along with his brother Locke, went three-for-three in the batter’s box with two RBI singles while striking out 12 and giving up only two unearned runs on the mound during a 4-2 win over the Raptors at Greg Brock Field on Thursday.
A season ago, Mountain View (16-2) was in the same situation — a game away from clinching the Northern crown — but a 14-6 loss at Longmont prevented the Mountain Lions from doing so. This time around, Bernhardt and company built a 2-0 lead in the first on an RBI single by their fourth-year stalwart, coupled that with a run on a wild pitch, and the Raptors (14-4) were never able to gain the lead in a closely contested showdown.
“Holden was dominant today,” Mountain View coach Brian Smela said. “He never really gave up any hard hits. The trouble he got into, we just couldn’t catch the ball. He pitched like a senior ace should pitch.”
Holden Bernhardt of Mountain View. (Brock Laue/CHSAANow.com)
For Bernhardt, nerves were in play early, but a pitcher sporting a 0.92 ERA going into Thursday, with an unblemished 6-0 record after the conference clincher, got into a comfort zone on the bump.
“I was a little nervous going in pitching,” he said. “After awhile I just settled down and treated them like any other team and tried to hit my spots.”
Touted as a pitcher’s duel between the capable arms of one of the Bernhardt brothers and Silver Creek’s Cole Winn or Austin Wood, Wood took to the mound for the Raptors and both pitchers flashed their ability in stretches. But, while Silver Creek’s ace had five strikeouts, his command wasn’t on cue like Bernhardt’s with a number of wild pitches and a few walks.
For Mountain View, sealing the Northern championship against some of the state’s finest teams, their first conference crown in six years, marked an achievement that both coaches and players alike set as one of the team’s ultimate goals in 2016.
“We set the goal first day of practice this year,” Smela said. “We were a game away last year. We talked about what our pathway needed to be. They stuck to the plan and were able to clinch it.”
“It’s really monumental to win this league. It’s just so tough every year. You have to be so battle-tested to be able to do it. To be able to get there, it probably won’t sink in for me for awhile.”
The teams also entered the day in a close race in the RPI standings with Silver Creek No. 1 and Mountain View No. 2. After the result, they switched places with Mountain View taking over the top spot in the 4A RPI.
They face each other again on Friday at Silver Creek in a game more for bragging rights and momentum. Only league winners earn the right to host districts next week during the start of playoffs, so anyone looking to take down the Mountain Lions, perhaps the No. 1 seed in the bracket, will have to begin at Greg Brock Field in Loveland, where the hosts have only lost once this season.
Russell comes to Erie from Centaurus, where she spent the past three seasons as girls basketball coach. In her time there, the Warriors were 30-40 — but are coming off a great season in which they went 20-4 and reached the Class 4A state tournament.
“I am honored and excited to take over the girls’ basketball program at Erie High School!” Russell wrote on the Erie site a few hours later. “We will be getting started right away as precious offseason time has already passed us by.”
She’ll take over an Erie program which went 10-13 last season in 4A. The Tigers had been led by Bill Giampietro for three years, going 32-39 in that stretch.
Erie is set to return nearly all of its roster, including its four leading scorers, from last season.
