CHSAANow

Month: November 2016

  • Green Mountain gymnastics claims 4A championship

    (Brock Laue/CHSAANow.com)
    (Brock Laue/CHSAANow.com)

    THORNTON — Sandi and Dan Patterson, take a bow as you exit the stage.

    The wife and husband tandem at Green Mountain (Sandi is the head coach and Dan an assistant) is in their final weekend with the Rams before retiring from the coaching ranks.

    Two decades. Three state championships. One all-around individual winner.

    The Pattersons have been around the block, circling it twenty times, and picking up pieces of hardware along the way. On Friday evening at the Class 4A state gymnastics meet at Thornton High School, the couple added their third and final team trophy as Green Mountain (182.300 points) surpassed Niwot (177.775) and Elizabeth (176.625) on their way to a state title.

    Entering the final meet of the Colorado season, the top candidates for the state championship seemed obvious. The trio had, after all, tallied the leading scores with ease at the regional meets last week. Green Mountain (177.675), Elizabeth (176.725) and Niwot (175.4) were the only ones to post over 170 points.

    Niwot was the defending champion. Elizabeth has three state crowns and four runner-ups since 2009. But neither could top Green Mountain on this night.

    “I don’t even have words,” Sandi Patterson said. “It’s the fairytale ending. It’s the perfect way to go out that you dream about, but it usually doesn’t happen. I’m just so overwhelmed.”

    And, the final tally was decisive. While Standley Lake junior Rachel Cody (37.000) defended her all-around individual state championship, the Rams had the next four finishers. Camille Dipaola (36.875), Emily Graham (36.575), Mya Sinha (36.525), and Hayley Upson (36.450) all had outstanding showings.

    The team, as a whole, got started on the right path from the beginning with a strong performance in their second event, the balance beam (45.65).

    “I have to say the most awesome thing was we hit six-for-six on beam, which we have been unable to do all season,” Patterson said excitedly. “We magically saved it for state and we got our highest score on beam. That was the highlight for me.”

    The promising early stages of the meet gave Green Mountain a 92.225-89.7 advantage over Niwot through the first two events. They kept the momentum flowing from there.

    Stepping down a class after placing 10th as a team in 5A last year, Green Mountain had a vision for 2016.

    “We knew we would be going to 4A and we knew we would be having all of our (state) returners coming back,” Patterson said. “They said, ‘We’re going to go for it next year.’ They worked in the offseason, they worked over the summer. I love that everybody always gives the coaches credit, but it was them.”

    It proved to be a perfect recipe for a Ram team that provided Patterson with her third state crown as a coach. Green Mountain also won 5A in 2006 and 2008.

    The program has now won four championships overall and, interestingly enough, their coach has been involved in some fashion in every one of them. Patterson was a member of the 1992 team that won 6A-5A.

    “It’s been pretty much my life,” she said. “I’m a Ram at heart. It’s in my blood. This is just extra special. It’ll be hard to leave.”

    As for the all-around competition, Cody wasn’t entirely sure if she had pulled it off. Not necessarily a total standout in one particular event, the junior is simply solid in every discipline.

    “Our whole team, we usually hold pinkies when they announce team awards,” she said. “They were like, ‘Do it for Rachel.’ It was really cool. I was freaking out.”

    Cody’s winning margin last season was 36.625-36.175 over Elizabeth’s Lexye Wood. Although she bettered her tally from 2015 with a 37.000, the competition was even stiffer with Dipaola posting a 36.875. Cody had scores of 9.075 (fourth) in uneven bars, 9.200 (fifth) in balance beam, and 9.225 (third) in floor. What may have pushed her to the top was the vault.

    “I always tell my teammates I’m mostly an all-around gymnast,” she said. “I’m good at everything, but I’m not super, super amazing at one thing. But vault was amazing tonight. I got the highest score I’ve ever gotten.”

    Cody’s 9.500, the second best mark of the evening behind only Green Mountain’s Mya Sinha (9.550), sealed back-to-back state championships.

    “I’m super honored,” she said. “It’s the most amazing feeling ever. I love it.”

    The state gymnastics championships resume on Saturday at 4 p.m. Individual event champions in both 4A and 5A will be crowned.

  • Photos: No. 6 Fort Morgan football looks impressive in shutout win over No. 8 Longmont

    LONGMONT — It was a good Friday night for the Fort Morgan defense as the No. 6-ranked Mustangs blanked No. 8 Longmont 21-0.

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  • Photos: 4A state gymnastics team and individual all-around competition

    THORNTON — Green Mountain came away as the big winners at Day 2 of the state gymnastics meet, which was held on Friday.

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  • Photos: Late touchdown lifts Loveland football over Greeley West

    LOVELAND — A fourth quarter touchdown proved to be the difference as Loveland beat Greeley West 14-7 on Friday night.

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  • Photos: Green Mountain football beats Lutheran in offensive shootout

    PARKER — Green Mountain needed every point it could get as the Rams edged Lutheran 47-41 in an offensive showdown Friday night.

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  • Photos: Pine Creek football shuts out Mesa Ridge to take league title

    COLORADO SPRINGS — Pine Creek found the end zone four times and didn’t allow a single point in a 28-0 win over Mesa Ridge on Friday night.

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  • Legend volleyball beats both Grand Junction and Rampart in five sets to earn state berth

    Legend Rampart volleyball
    (Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)

    COLORADO SPRINGS — The Legend Titans looked defeated. They were down 2-0 to Grand Junction and were one set away from suffering a loss at their first match at the Region 8 playoffs at Rampart.

    Hannah Haveman was suffering from a back issue that had her laying on a bag of ice when she wasn’t gutting it out on the floor.

    But she toughed it out. And the Titans battled back to beat the Tigers in five sets. Then they beat Rampart 25-21, 25-19, 24-26, 19-25 and 15-13 in another five-set thriller.

    And away to state they go.

    “This is the third year I’ve gone,” Haveman said. “It feels amazing every single time.”

    But she had to labor through the journey a little bit more than she wanted. Legend watched Rampart sweep Grand Junction 25-23, 25-15 and 25-13 to start the day, giving the home team an instant edge.

    The Titans then took the floor and were sloppy at the beginning, committing far too many errors for a team looking to reach the Denver Coliseum.

    “We kind of got down on ourselves,” Katie Turner said. “We were making a lot of errors and we took Grand Junction for granted.”

    Down 2-0, the girls realized they had to start taking things a little more seriously.

    They fought, clawed and scratched their way to three consecutive wins, setting up a regional championship match with the hosting Rams.

    “We got got back into it, we played our game and we had lots of energy,” Turner said. “We just had a lot of fun playing on the court.”

    And they rode that wave of momentum into the match with Rampart. It didn’t help the Rams that they had a knack for starting matches slow anyway.

    They had been sitting for over three hours while the Titans were loose and fresh off an adrenaline-budiling comeback.

    Legend Rampart volleyball
    (Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)

    So when Legend jumped out to an immediate two-set lead, it seemed like a quick final match was in the cards. It was great news for Haveman who continued to ice her back when she wasn’t on the floor.

    “Since we went to five in the first match, I was really hoping we could do it in three,” she said. “As we went on, there was just so much adrenaline and I couldn’t even feel it.”

    But the shift in momentum would say otherwise.

    The Rams battled to win the third set 26-24 and kept that momentum rolling in the fourth. For Rampart coach Nikki Kinzer, it was just another day that her girls were getting off to a slow start.

    “We’ve had a hard time starting a match all season,” she said. “So for us to come out and start 0-2 was tough. We were clearly ready, we just didn’t start the way we needed to.”

    In the fifth set, both teams were so afraid of making mistakes that it was tough for either side to really seize control.

    “That was a different game five than any that I’ve coached, ever,” Legend coach Verlyn Rosenthal said. “Both sides were playing not to lose. Playing safe. There were times that I was going to make different moves and I’m glad I didn’t. If we lost I would’ve hated that.”

    But the Titans were able to grit it out and win the final set 15-13.

    Rosenthal aims to get his team playing on the last weekend of each year and he has once against accomplished that goal.

    All Legend needs now is to win four more matches to come away with a state title. And it would help if they didn’t wait to be down 2-0 in pool play before being forced to rally.

    But if they learned one thing on Saturday, it’s that being on the brink of defeat can trigger a run at victory.

  • Cherry Creek volleyball has high expectations heading into regionals

    Cherry Creek volleyball team
    (Matt Daniels/mattdanphoto.com)

    Postseason volleyball gets under way this week and teams from all over the state will battle in hopes of advancing to next week’s state tournament at the Denver Coliseum.

    One of the more interesting regions in the Class 5A field will be Region 11, which is hosted by Loveland High School.

    At 20-3, the Indians come in as the high seed of the pool and have yet to lose a match to a non-league opponent but finished in fourth place in the extremely competitive Front Range League.

    Cherry Creek come into the region with a 19-4 record, putting them at No. 16 in the state field. The record was good enough to finish third in another powerhouse league in the Centennial.

    The lowest seed in the pool is No. 25 Liberty. The Lancers come into the weekend at 12-11 and finished fourth in the Colorado Springs Metro League.

    The Bruins have high expectations for regional play as long time head coach Sally Moos is looking to lead her Bruins back to the Coliseum for the sixth year in a row.

    “Our goal of going to state is solid in all of our minds,” senior libero Kate Chapman said. “We’re have trained for months to get to this point so we just have to play our game point by point.”

    It’s also no secret that the Bruins have had success in regular season tournament play winning both the Cherry Creek Classic and Titan Classic this last weekend.

    “We set the bar [high] with wins in those tournaments,” Chapman continued. “We now strive to surpass how we played then every time we step on the court.”

    Games begin at 10 a.m. with Loveland taking on Liberty.

    With three teams fighting for one spot emotions and energy will be high and only one team can keep its season alive.

  • Young No. 3 Eaglecrest football team grinds to program’s second undefeated season

    AURORA — Hustle doesn’t take any days off, so neither did Eaglecrest’s football team this year.

    And at the end of the Raptors’ regular season schedule, the “no days off” mentality paid off in a colossal way.

    This week’s Class 5A No. 3-ranked Eaglecrest football team rolled to the program’s second-ever undefeated season with a 41-14 victory over Arvada West on Thursday night at Legacy Stadium.

    The Raptors, 10-0 overall, clinched the Mt. Wilson League title for the program’s first league championship since 1993, and will receive an automatic playoff berth in the state tournament. The Raptors closed out the season as the only unbeaten team in 5A this year.

    Seventh year head coach Mike Schmitt, a previous Denver Broncos high school football coach of the week, said the young team started out good and has really progressed week after week.

    “We started out the season as a team full of tenacity and a team full of toughness, but as we’ve gone through this year our confidence levels have increased, our execution has improved and our defense has gotten a whole lot better,” Schmitt said. “They just got a bit tougher and that’s been our progression.”

    On senior night, the young team celebrated the 17 seniors on the team – the true leaders of the squad.

    “It’s tough to get up every week to play and finish against these teams, and I’m just glad our guys remained focused. We didn’t play our best every week, but we remained focused and did what we had to get those 10 victories,” Schmitt said.

    Eaglecrest Arvada West football
    (John Priest/CHSAANow.com)

    He added: “The credit goes to our senior class and the boys. As coaches, we try to do what we can do, but it’s really the young men. This group loves each other and they appreciate playing with each other and doing things for one another.”

    The Raptors, who start five or six seniors, are led on offense by the junior trio of running back Kenny Wantings, quarterback Jalen Mergerson and running back Victor Garnes. The Raptors produced 365 points this year, which ranks in the top 5 of Class 5A.

    Garnes had stellar season and was all over the field for the Raptors on both sides of the ball. He dashed for a vicious 53-yard punt return early in the second quarter on the Raptors’ first possession, and punched in two TDs for the Raptors against the Wildcats (6-4).

    “The seniors are big leaders on our team,” Mergerson said. “They’re all great leaders and they keep us young guys in check most of the time and they play hard.”

    Mergerson ran in the first TD of the game for Eaglecrest to put them up early and then capitalized off a recovered fumble after firing a 20-yard TD pass to junior wide receiver Theryne Sandoval-Jimenz, who also scored a second later on.

    The Eaglecrest defense that allowed 127 this year is also top-ranked in 5A.

    The defensive backs provided excellent coverage against the Wildcats, who boast a lethal passer in second year starting QB sophomore Johnny Krutsch. The defensive backs were batting down balls all night and Raptors cornerback Kyle Johnson picked off Krutsch in the first half of the game before a slew of even more turnovers.

    “We’re trying to be a team that gives an elite effort,” Schmitt said. “We’ve always said we want to be an elite team, and not in a sense we want to be the best team out there, but we just want to give that elite effort in practice and we’ve gone through what it takes to be a better than average team.”

    “We’re going to have a Saturday morning practice to get ready for the playoffs and it goes back to where we were in the beginning of the year,” Schmitt said. “We want to be 1-0. That’s all we’re going to focus on is our opponent.”

    Garnes added: “We haven’t done this in 23 years and for us to play this way has been amazing. With this record going into the playoffs, we’re looking to finish it out.

    “We’re coming. We’re just coming. Everybody needs to know that we’re coming.”

    Eaglecrest football team
    (Morgan Dzak/CHSAANow.com)

  • Pomona repeats as 5A gymnastics team champion

    (Brock Laue/CHSAANow.com)
    (Brock Laue/CHSAANow.com)

    THORNTON — As gifted as many of the Class 5A crews are again in 2016, the state gymnastics meet proved to be a two-horse race in the team competition.

    Overland, winners of four of the past seven crowns, was hoping to reclaim their perch atop the mountain. The Trailblazers had the necessary depth to overcome the loss of injured state regulars like McKenna Turbyne (fifth in 2015 all-around competition) and Madie Venegas. Overland was unbeaten entering day one of the state meet at Thornton High School, the deciding evening in the 5A team and individual all-around competitions.

    Pomona, meanwhile, was coming off a historic 2015 state meet. They claimed title No. 1 in girls sports for the school by shattering the all-classification record for points with 190.925. Junior Kelsey Boychuk won the all-around championship her first two seasons for the black and scarlet.

    Despite a close contest, the Panthers doubled the titles and doubled the fun for the second straight year. The team tally for points was Pomona 187.700 and Overland 185.875, while a different Panther in Brooke Weins claimed the all-around state championship.

    After a season marked by injuries to several top competitors, Pomona finally had their entire varsity lineup for last week’s regional meet and for the state championships.

    “It was a little closer than last year,” Panther coach Tracey Boychuk said, knowing that Overland and Broomfield (third, 182.575) would challenge. “We’ve had injuries on and off. It’s been one of those up-and-down years. But the girls really wanted it and they fought hard for it.”

    Through two of four events, Pomona held a mere 92.55-92.375 advantage over the Trailblazers. Then the vault happened. Tallying a terrific 48.325 for the five competitors, the Panthers started to gain separation on Overland, who still had a sterling 47.1 in the event.

    A star-studded group was intact just in time for state — injuries to the likes of Kaylie Berens, who missed a couple of weeks with an ankle injury, and Boychuk, who sprained her foot and missed three weeks — didn’t derail Pomona’s quest for another 5A crown.

    But it certainly may have played a role in Boychuk’s pursuit of a third all-around title. Sophomore Weins, the runner-up by a tenth of a point last season (38.825-38.725), finished with a total of 38.925 for the win. Lakewood’s Amber Boll was second at 38.275, while Berens (37.975) and Boychuk (37.775) finished third and fourth.

    Weins was first in the uneven bars (9.750) and the balance beam (9.725), while finishing second to Boychuk in the vault (9.875-9.850) and third in floor exercise (9.600). It all added up to an all-around crown, but it didn’t come without some nerves.

    “Beam was last and I was freaking out,” Weins said. “I was like, ‘I can’t fall, I can’t fall.’ But I told myself that I’m a beautiful gymnast and that I’m here because I’m good. I felt like I was shaking the whole time, but I stayed on and ended up getting a 9.725.

    “I’m glad I could do this with my team. It’s an adrenaline rush. I don’t really know what to feel right now.”

    The elder Boychuk, the mother of Kelsey, says the junior was more excited about the team accomplishment than any disappointment about coming up a little short in the all-around. And, she had dealt with a difficult setback with her foot.

    “Kelsey and Brooke have been friends and teammates for a long, long time and they are always very happy for each other,” Boychuk said. “They like to see each other do well. Kelsey didn’t have her best meet tonight, but I think now for next year the pressure is off and she can come back and hopefully place high again. But fourth place is still pretty good.”

    Ranked No. 1 in 5A in football, Pomona is off to another promising start athletically after winning state crowns in wrestling and boys track during the 2015-16 school year. Yes, times are good for the Panthers. They have now won nine overall state championships in their history and the gymnastics team continues to break new ground on the girls side.

    “The school is very excited for us,” Boychuk said. “The only other team to go back-to-back was wrestling (2000, 2001), so it’s nice to be able to talk about our gymnastics team as being the same caliber as our wrestling team. The excitement has kept us going. Pomona is very supportive. The teachers and the students and the parents, it’s an amazing community.”

    The gymnastics state championships will resume at Thornton at 4 p.m. on Friday when the 4A team and individual all-around winners will be decided. The top 15 finishers of each event Thursday advanced to Saturday’s individual discipline finals.