GREENWOOD VILLAGE — In the second round of the Class 5A girls soccer state tournament, No. 16 Fairview took down No. 1 Cherry Creek 1-1, 5-4 in penalties.
In a nail biter of a finish, it was the save of freshman goalkeeper Hayden Velds that earned the Knights the victory. Cherry Creek had second shot in the kicks, and with pressure early on after a Cherry Creek miss, it seemed like Fairview was at the advantage throughout the shots.
Momentum in this game seemed to shift in the regulation halftime, and Fairview entered on the pitch in the second half with a fire. Consistently good shots from Tea Smith put Cherry Creek on its heels. Her ability to deliver quality strikes from range surprised Cherry Creek and eliminated the Bruins offensive attacks.
Velds had a huge performance for the Knights. Countless saves kept Creek out of the net and let the Knights offense go to work.
“I (saw) the way she opened her hips when she went back and used that to decide where I was going to go, then I went for it because that is all you can really do,” she said.
Velds, beaming with joy, knew as soon as she saved it they won.
“I think we are going to get rolling,” she said. “Fairview is coming.”
The Knights will now take on Broomfield in the quarterfinals.
PARKER — Kennedy Mealhow and Hannah Mill each scored five goals as No. 4 Chaparral beat No. 20 Castle View/Douglas County 17-4 in the girls state lacrosse tournament.
GREELEY — The first-ever Class 3A girls tennis tournament came down to the final set with D’Evelyn and Dawson tied for the lead.
“It’s pretty incredible, it’s an amazing feeling,” D’Evelyn coach Woody Oliver said after his team hoisted the first-place trophy. “The last few days have been quite the ride, but I wouldn’t have wanted it to go any other way. It was a great few days with a storybook ending.”
In the No. 4 doubles match between D’Evelyn’s Charity Perks and Keri Jennings and Colorado Academy’s Alexandra Ford and Story Wolf-Tinsman, Perks and Jennings dropped the second set after winning the first.
“I know that in the second set, we got really excited,” Perks said. “We got too excited, and really needed to calm down, but we didn’t know that our team was riding on us for the state championship. It was a huge victory for the whole team.”
D’Evelyn was riding on the doubles pair more than they could imagine. A loss would have given Colorado Academy the team win.
“It came down to the last match. I lost a few years off my life, the pressure was pretty intense,” Oliver said. “I think we had five or six match points in the second set and ended up losing, but all the credit goes to the girls. They refocused and realized what was at stake. They played the best they have all year when it mattered the most.”
Perks and Jennings pulled through (6-4, 5-7, 6-2) to give the Jaguars the school’s first girls tennis team championship.
(Cannon Casey/CHSAANow.com)
“It was really nice to win this for our team, we’ve worked so hard this season,” Jennings said. “I’m so glad that we were able to pull through and keep calm and just leave it all on the court.”
D’Evelyn had five players in championship matches on Saturday, which carried the Jaguars in team points. D’Evelyn grabbed just six team points on the final day with two wins, but those were the points that made the difference.
“Like we were saying a few months ago, the strength of the team is not any one player,” Oliver said. “It’s their depth, the entire team. It’s all across the board. There was no weak link, there was no strong link. It was a total team effort, so all the credit goes to them — they deserve it.”
Colorado Academy’s Moore-Thomson dominant in No. 1 singles final
(Cannon Casey/CHSAANow.com)
Sammy Moore-Thomson looked anything but a freshman in a dominant 6-0, 6-0 win over Mae Thorp in the No. 1 singles final.
“[Thorp] and I have been playing against eachother for a while — I’ve been playing her since I was nine in tournaments,” Moore-Thomson said. “Last time I played her, it was a lot closer. I’ve been working really hard recently, and this shows that my hard work is paying off.”
Moore-Thomson found herself in an unfamiliar position Friday in the semifinals after dropping the first set. She was in a close second set with Peak to Peak’s Trisha Somasundaram and was showing her age.
But, she took a breath and remembered what got her there. Moore-Thomson fought back to win and advance to the finals.
“I had a tough match yesterday,” Moore-Thomson said. “I was just trying to improve on yesterday, and anything can happen out there. Really, I was just going out there to have fun and play for the team as well as myself. I think this was a good end to the season.”
And in the finals, it was a whole different level of confidence from Moore-Thomson.
“I tend to have a bad habit of trying to end the points too quickly,” Moore-Thomson said. “I was trying to work on hitting a high top-spin ball and waiting for the right opportunity to attack. I felt that I played well in this match.”
(Cannon Casey/CHSAANow.com)
The win was big in team points as it inched Colorado Academy closer to D’Evelyn.
“It’s really close,” Moore-Thomson said. “This morning, we had 49 points and D’Evelyn had 51. Dawson was close behind, so this win was worth three points, which would put us over D’Evelyn.
“It’s really important for the team and really meant a lot to me.”
Moore-Thomson and Colorado Academy came up short, but finished tied for second with Dawson.
The Mustangs’ Bridget Bell took her No. 2 singles match to tie D’Evelyn at 54 for the lead (and eventually Colorado Academy in second) with two matches remaining.
Holy Family tandem Leah Schwartz/Camilla Ruiz became the first champions in school history when they won their No. 2 doubles match over D’Evelyn’s Maggie Hime/Olivia Sanders.
Courtney Leafgren and Shelby Naill won Eaton’s lone title of the tournament, cruising through the tournament. Leafgren and Naill beat D’Evelyn’s Angi Reed and Taylor Whatley in No. 1 doubles.
D’Evelyn’s No. 2 doubles of Cammy Lee and Elisa Dean also didn’t drop a set in state or regionals. They came in third last year at the 4A tournament.
But Kent Denver’s Josie Schaffer wasn’t about to let the Indians have all the glory.
The sophomore claimed her second-straight title in No. 1 singles, besting Durango’s Mavis Edwards 6-1, 6-2 at Pueblo City Park.
Prior to the outcome, Schaffer entered the match the same way she had entered every match this weekend. It may not have been clearly visible, but she was batting nerves the entire time.
“There were so many,” Schaffer said.
(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
But she settled in quickly by breaking Edwards’ first serve of the match to take a 2-0 lead in set one.
Edwards held in the fourth game of the set to stop Schaffer’s run, but she knew she was in for a challenge by the way Schaffer was striking the ball and moving around the court.
“She’s good,” Edwards said. “You can’t do anything about it. Her game didn’t really go with mine. Her game is better than better than mine.”
Schaffer broke Edwards again in game six and held her serve to win the set.
Edwards rebounded to start set two, holding her serve to take the first game. But Schaffer once again found her rhythm and jumped to a quick 3-1 lead. Edwards would hold one more time, but the defending champ was too much for Durango’s first-timer.
As dominant as she had been, Schaffer didn’t get ahead of herself and didn’t allow to her accept victory until the final point fell her way.
“I’ve had matches where I’ve been up 5-1 and people have come back,” she said. “It’s really dangerous thinking you’re going to win when you’re up by that much so I just tried to stay in the moment.”
The top singles bracket was the only one that did not have a Cheyenne Mountain player standing atop the podium. Though they had separated themselves on Friday, the Indians officially claimed their ninth-straight title.
The biggest drama of the day took place in the No. 2 singles final. Corey Patton Lossner edged Kent Denver’s Amanda Schlatter 6-2, 6-7 (5), 6-0.
A team title was well in hand, but the Indians rallied around Patton Lossner as if their title hopes depended on it.
“It was amazing just having my team support me, it’s so much fun,” Patton Lossner said. “It’s very different from the team I came from in Hawaii. No one else really played so I was the only girl to ever go to state. Coming to a team where everyone goes and we can all play together is fantastic.”
The duo of Casey Ahrendsen and Ally Arenson came away with their fourth title in No. 1 doubles. Overall the team lost only five games at the state tournament and dropped only one set in their state tournament career.
The Indians finished with 91 points overall, 45 better than second-place Kent Denver.
For coach David Adams, seeing his team celebrate a championship in May is a feeling he will never tire of.
“That’s the best part of this whole thing,” he said. “Just seeing that kind of comradery.”
With the win on Saturday, the Indians now claim 22 championships in school history.
DENVER — For some three-and-a-half hours Saturday morning — and early afternoon — Poudre’s Ky Ecton and Smoky Hill’s Anshika Singh poured their heart and soul into the fight for the Class 5A girls tennis No. 1 singles crown.
The juniors engaged in a back-and-forth marathon at Gates Tennis Center, leaving everything they had on West Center Court, and then some.
Finally, after three grueling sets in the heat — and long after every other match had concluded — Singh’s return on match point went long. That gave Ecton a 7-6 (13-11), 4-6, 6-4 victory and the moment she had wanted ever since coming up just short a year ago.
“Last year was a tough loss. Seraphin played awesome; she definitely deserved that match,” Ecton said of losing in the 2016 No. 1 singles finale to Fairview’s Seraphin Castelino. “But this year coming back and winning it … makes me feel really proud of myself for being able to fight that hard and grit through it.”
Poudre was one of six different schools to win an individual championship Saturday. The only program to win multiple titles was Cherry Creek, which claimed No. 3 and No. 4 doubles – along with the 5A team trophy for the 34th time in the school’s history.
Mountain Vista finished second, a first for the program, followed by Ponderosa and Denver East.
(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
The Bruins had won 19 5A championships in a row before Fairview ended that run a year ago.
“When I started meeting with our seniors in September, that was something we continued to have as a motivator for us,” Cherry Creek coach Chris Jacob said. “The girls played in the offseason and got ready together; they had a tough challenge season, and that was a big deal.
“I really didn’t leave (last year) feeling like we lost that; I felt like Fairview won that.”
But before the Bruins could hold the team trophy aloft, the matter of the No. 1 singles final had to be decided. Neither Ecton nor Singh was willing to give an inch — or a point — without a fight.
Look no further than the first set. Ecton won the first three games before Singh took five of the next six. Ecton battled back and had set point up 6-5, but Singh forced a tiebreaker.
Singh fought off six set points in the tiebreaker, including four in a row after being down 6-2. But Ecton did the same on three occasions before finally closing it out at 13-11.
Singh won three of the first four games in the second set, and after a little back-and-forth was able to finally even things up with the 6-4 victory. That gave both players a little break from the heat, though Ecton wasn’t sure how she was going to power through the fatigue of playing a third three-set match in three days.
So where did she find that extra reserve to eventually take the third set?
(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
“My mom, who is my coach, was like ‘Ky, you run cross country. You know you can do this. You know you have that in you,’” Ecton said. “Knowing that I had my mom know me as a person and a tennis player, being like, ‘You have more in you. This is what you’ve dreamed of – you have six more games to win, you can do it.’”
Ecton wasn’t the only first-time champion. Ponderosa senior Claire Cox — making her fourth state appearance — finally broke through with a 0-6, 6-1, 6-2 victory Mountain Vista sophomore Madi Allen.
“I knew it was my last chance to do it, so I fought for every point,” Cox said. “I really wanted to end my senior year with a state title, so it was really cool.”
Heritage junior Lauren Thomas won at No. 3 singles, 6-4, 7-6 over Cherry Creek’s Thanish Kemica Arul Kumar.
Mountain Vista’s Ashlen Grote and Amanda Pruitt captured the No. 1 doubles title 6-2, 6-3; Denver East’s Maddie Darre and Kelly Wulf rallied from a set down to win the No. 2 doubles crown; and Cherry Creek’s Wendy Yan and Rachel Schiff (No. 3 doubles), and Grace Shepard and Kaki Cantor (No. 4 doubles) won in straight sets.
The Bruins entered Saturday with only a six-point cushion over Mountain Vista, but had put themselves in good position to take care of business with some late playback points Friday.
“It’s a great feeling to win something this tight,” Jacob said. “The girls played so well. They had such a great warm-up and they were relaxed. We knew what we needed to do at the end of the day (Friday).”
DENVER — When Mountain Vista girls tennis coach Jim Flanigan looks at his program, he breaks it down into two histories: Before Casey, and After Casey.
That’d be Casey Zhong, the Golden Eagles’ top player over the past four seasons who has placed at the Class 5A state tournament twice, and now made three consecutive trips to the semifinals in No. 1 Singles.
Since Zhong joined the program in 2014, she has raised the team to prominence, helping them finish in the top 5 the past two seasons. She has led them to four regional titles, and three Continental League championships.
She was also the program’s first all-conference player at No. 1 Singles, and is its first singles placer at state.
“To have that type of player validate the program and come into the program the way that she did is just really a gift from god,” Flanigan said. “And she loves being part of the team. … She loves playing high school tennis. Which is the type of kid you don’t get all that often.
“She’s an amazing kid. I’m really proud of her and everything she’s accomplished.”
Thursday, on the first day of the 5A tournament, Zhong beat Fruita Monument junior Sarah Fleming 6-2, 6-2 in the first round, and then battled with Fairview sophomore Sophie Pearson in a three-set match that lasted two hours. Zhong won 7-5, 3-6, 7-5 — and the third set was tied 5-5 before Zhong broke Pearson’s serve to go up 6-5.
“There were a lot of ups and downs,” Zhong said of the match. “There was just a lot of mental that I had to get past. It was definitely a physical battle, too. We had long points.
“She played amazing,” Zhong added. “I’ve never played her before, so it was nice playing a new opponent, but she hit really well. Honestly, I was happy to play her. I got a good match in.”
It marks the third-straight season Zhong has reached the semifinals. She has never advanced to the final.
“I just play every match like it’s my last one, and I play my heart out,” Zhong said. “I guess that’s what got me to the semifinals to this year, too.”
The senior added that previous trips to state have been helpful this season.
“I always get nervous when I come, just because it’s such a big thing once you get here. You’re like, ‘Wow, I made it to state,’” Zhong said. “But there is a feeling of comfort knowing that I’ve been here before, what the atmosphere’s like, what to expect.”
Poudre’s Ky Ecton. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
Zhong will face Ky Ecton in the semifinals. Ecton, a junior from Poudre, was the 5A No. 1 Singles runner-up last season.
Ecton beat Denver East sophomore Emma Morrissey (6-0, 6-0) in the first round, and then Ponderosa freshman Hana Kimmey (6-0, 2-6, 6-4) in the quarterfinals.
Zhong said she’s looking forward to “enjoying state one last time, and playing my heart out” on Friday.
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Notables
The No. 3 and No. 4 doubles matches couldn’t finish play on Thursday, and will begin at 7:30 a.m. on Friday. Additionally, there is one No. 2 doubles match, between Poudre and Ponderosa, that will also play at 7:30 a.m. on Friday. Semifinals begin at 9 a.m.
Cherry Creek leads the team race with 13, while Mountain Vista and Ponderosa are tied for second with 12 points. Denver East is fourth with 10.
ThunderRidge freshman Veronika Bruetting and Smoky Hill junior Anshika Singh are in the other semifinal for the No. 1 Singles draw. Smoky Hill hasn’t had an individual champion since 1987. ThunderRidge has never had an individual champion.
Cherry Creek was the lone team to advance all seven positions out of the first round.
Durango’s Emma Hackett. (Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
PUEBLO — The Durango Demons ventured all the way over Wolf Creek Pass to partake in a tennis tournament, not a karaoke contest.
But one wouldn’t know it on the road trip.
“Sometimes we’ll just plug in the aux cord and have a great time singing, even though everyone is bad at singing,” freshman Mavis Edwards said. “It’s just fun putting our phones away and enjoying each other’s company.”
And then there’s tennis.
Edwards made quite the first impression on her first trip to the Class 4A state tennis tournament at Pueblo City Park. She beat Lewis-Palmer’s Emma Gaydos and Mattie Kuntzelman – last year’s No. 2 singles champion – to advance to the No. 1 singles semifinal.
The Demons also got their No. 2 doubles team in the semis as Lily Chick and Emily West topped Coronado’s duo of Sydney Coen and Emma Sartain.
For Mavis, the accomplishment is especially impressive considering she’s in her freshman year. She could’ve come into her first foray at state tennis looking to make an impact and become the second freshman in a row to take the No. 1 singles title.
(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
But she’d rather just enjoy the moment. And if she just so happens to become the first Demon to win a singles title, so be it.
“For me, personally, it’s not very important to walk away with a win,” Edwards said. “I do it for fun. I enjoy what I do.”
The fun-loving mentality is certainly contagious with the Demons. They’ve traveled the longest road to get to state and the experience itself brings an incredibly close team even closer.
“The girls, we’re all really good friends,” sophomore Emma Hackett said. “In the hotel rooms we’ll just laugh. It’s all really fun.”
Hackett, however, has a touch more of a competitive drive when it comes to performing on the court. She lost 6-1, 6-0 in No. 3 singles, but knows that she still has time to get back to this level.
“I’m really competitive,” Hackett said. “It’s fun, but I really want to win.”
She’ll have a chance to end her season as a winner if Cheyenne Mountain’s Claire Dibble can advance to the finals, putting Hackett into the playback bracket.
The Indians jumped out to a lead in their hunt for a ninth-straight team championship. They advanced all seven positions to the semis.
“That’s all you can ask,” Cheyenne Mountain coach David Adams said. “If you want to be able to control your own destiny, you have to win (on Thursday). If you lose one, then you have to hope someone else can pull you through.”
It will be a tough slate for the defending champions. In No. 1 singles, it will be a battle of sophomores as Morgan Hall is set to face reigning No. 1 single champion Josie Schaffer from Kent Denver.
It wasn’t an easy task for Hall to get to the semis as she had to go three sets against Niwot’s Taylor Thulson.
“For Morgan to get through five-all in third, she was down love-40,” Adams said. “She dug and dug and held serve to come out of that match.”
Semifinals will begin at Pueblo City Park at 9 a.m. Friday morning.
