The Denver Coliseum is located at I-70 (Brighton Blvd. Exit 275B) and Humboldt Street, just east of the junction of I-25 with I-70.
Road Closure: You cannot currently access the main parking lot from Arkins Court (on the west side) as that area is closed due to construction. If you exit on Washington St., you can use the 46th street entrance.
Parking: Denver Coliseum parking is located on the west side of the Coliseum. Parking fees vary by event. Parking is $10 dollars for the main lot and $15 for close-in parking.
Pomona and Eaglecrest set the record for highest scoring Class 5A football state championship game in Colorado history. When the dust settled Dec. 2 at Mile High Stadium, Pomona came away with its first football state title since 1988 with a 56-49 victory. Jeffco Public Schools’ Multimedia Specialist Jack Maher — still photos from photographer Lance Wendt — gives us one last look at one of the most memorable football state championship games in Colorado history.
Week 1 certainly didn’t let us down and we now dig into more early season tournament and non-league battles! A few times are rising to the top early…but has anyone really been tested yet? Let’s check out the mid-week action!
Monday, Dec. 4
Broomfield got the "Fairview Festival" tourney off to the right start beating Palmer by 19 points. Seniors Justin Berry with 13 and Devin Martinez 11.
Fresh off their tourney success in Fort Collins, Denver East is also in the Fairview Festival and beat Sierra soundly by 30 points with FOURTEEN players getting in to the scoring column led by Daylen Kountz’s 21!
Arvada West used a 20-8 second quarter advantage to control Denver South and win in the Fairview Fest tourney 55-46.
Coach Calvin McCoy made his return to the sidelines of Adams City but Pomona ruined the homecoming party winning on the road 55-28.
Preseason No. 10 Grandview jumped out to a 27-8 first quarter advantage and just kept on trucking in their debut win 80-43 over Brighton. Junior Dayne Prim led the scoring with 16 for the Wolves.
Sophomore Jalen Paige scored 16 points for Fairview as they kick off their tourney putting a "30-piece" on Hinkley 80-50.
Tuesday, Dec. 5
The Fever Crew made it out to Gateway’s home opener vs. Cherry Creek! The Bruins did not get the memo of Gateway playing well out west at the Grand Junction tourney and jumped all over the Olympians early and often! Bruins are led by senior Demitri Stanley and have some talented youth that will bode well for the programs future! Three players in double figures on this night… check out the "Action Shots" here
The Ralston Round Up tournament is under way and Mountain Range more than doubled Standley Lake 71-35. Two juniors, Brandon Romero and D. Wright scored 18 points each.
Chatfield off to a rough start this year and Monarch sent the Chargers to 0-3 with a 64-58 win at home.
Avery Remboa scored 30 points but it wasn’t enough to stop Pomona from making it 2-0 this week with the 82-77 home victory.
Junior Andrew Sepeda carried a heavy scoring load for Greeley West scoring 26 of the teams 56 points in 7-point win over Wheatridge.
4A Preseason No. 1 Golden took a loss week 1 but bounced back impressively beating 5A Fossil Ridge by 15!
Senior Malik Fofana helped Montbello (FNE) continue their strong start to the season scoring 26 points vs. "ol skool" DPL foe Manual.
Rampart lost an early tourney game to GW but have looked strong since and strong senior Xavier Johnson’s 21 led to the 9 point win over Vista Ridge.
The Fever Crew saw this as a possible "game of the week" candidate and No. 1 Rock Canyon’s 3-headed senior monster of Masten, Gilbert, and Williams all scored in double figures to help seal the tough road win at Eaglecrest. Senior Morgan Brown scored 17 inside for the Raptors in the loss who played well without a couple of football studs who haven’t joined quite yet.
Rangeveiw has to play a strong non league schedule and they continue to roll early as Devin Collins scored 14 points in the 13-point win over Dakota Ridge.
Ralston Valley got serious on "D" in the fourth quarter holding Legacy to only 4 points in the final stage but not enough to complete the comeback as they lost by 1. J Stapleton with 13 points and 3 rebounds in the win.
Preseason No. 5 in 4A Holy Family was not joking around and took Niwot to the wood shed 65-28!
GW bot back on track with a blowout up north 86-39 over Poudre. FRESHMAN ALERT: Kendale Johnson paced the Patriots with 16 points, 6 rebounds in the win!
We have another "30-piece" sighting from Fort Collins senior R. Oligmueller who scored 30 (4 three pointers) in the Lambkins win over Aurora Central.
How do you get six players in double figures? Score 98! Coronado pulled out a "can of whoopin" on Sand Creek winning 98-66 with senior Ashton Rogers scoring 21.
Preseason 4A No. 3 Pueblo West took a loss to Cheyenne Mountain 72-68 and junior N. Bassett led all scorers with 19!
Wednesday, Dec. 6
Derrian Reed kept his hot streak going scoring 18 in Sierra’s win over Palmer!
Valor made a statement in the Chaparral Tip Off Classic with a 75-58 win over Cherry Creek. Valor might be moving up from that No. 8 spot in our preseason poll!
That Doherty tradition of senior led deep squads seems to be right on track as the Spartans took down Lincoln in the T-Ridge/Chap kickoff tourney 68-49. Senior Kyrel Benford led three in double figure scoring with 15.
CU Commit Daylen Kountz was once again the lead man for Denver East as the Angels continue to roll early. This night it was 62-48 behind Kountz’s 21 points at the Fairview Festival!
ThunderRidge will be moving up our rankings after their run in California and coming home to a 91-20 win over Grand Junction in tourney play! Yes, 91 is impressive but our Fever Crew who watched this one stress that "D-FENCE" is the staple of this crew. Kaison Hammonds with 25 on this night!
Another squad that has our full attention is Chaparral! Only a couple games in but they are healthy and look good again beating Rocky Mountain by 13 in the Tip Off Classic.
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Midweek Thoughts
It’s very early, folks! So, a little free-style off the top our Ball Fever dome brings Rock Canyon, East, Chaparral, and ThunderRidge in 5A ball.
We haven’t forgot you, Smoky Hill! The Buffaloes had easy CO games before heading out of state for tourney play so we’ll closely watch that.
Rock Canyon? Early test? Check!!
Denver East? Undefeated…all on the road in tourney play…and well, Daylen!
Chap? Watch these guys…Ronnie DeGray III as versatile as they come and he’s assisted by a smooth point guard in Kobe Sanders.
T-Ridge? Kaison, Kaison, Kaison…Hammonds is the real deal and gives his all on both ends of the floor.
We’ll be digging into 4A a little more in coming weeks as well but most impressive so far = Lewis-Palmer!
Lots of action still to be viewed this week, folks! Get out and enjoy the hoops!
AURORA — During a busy meeting on Tuesday, the football committee formally made its league alignment recommendations, and also discussed changes to the postseason format and practice schedule.
The 15-member committee — made up of two representatives of each classification, as well as chair Mike Krueger — walked through alignment proposals for all seven classes in front of a packed meeting space.
All recommendations from the football committee must be approved by the Legislative Council at its January meeting.
Some highlights on the alignment:
• Three schools (Alameda, Mitchell and Hinkley) were moved down a classification by the committee, using the latitude given them according to bylaw 1500.1
They considered seven schools under this process, but settled on the three, as they most closely fit the criteria as laid out in bylaw 1500.21.
• Most classes have 42 schools. The ones that don’t: 5A (40), 1A (40), 8-man (43), and 6-man (32).
• The committee really tried to get back to a more traditional league alignment.
“We heard loudly from our membership that we want more traditional leagues, and play traditional neighborhood rivals,” Krueger said at the beginning of the meeting.
With that in mind, many leagues relied heavily on geography. For example: the five Pueblo schools are grouped together with Durango in 3A; some school districts, such as Jeffco and Cherry Creek, were kept together where possible in 5A.
• 5A took a new approach to its alignment as it moved away from the waterfall format with an eye toward saving struggling programs.
“We have to do something with some programs, or we’re going to flat lose some programs,” said Chris Noll, the Doherty athletic director who is a 5A representative.
So the football committee identified and separated out 10 teams and placed them in a league on their own. The remaining 30 teams were split into six-team leagues.
There was also a lot of discussion about the difficulty of scheduling non-conference games in 5A, and some even asked if CHSAA could schedule the non-league slate.
“We do see this as a very significant issue,” Krueger said. “If we don’t step up and start to help our sister schools (schedule), there will be movement toward that mandate.
“As badly as we want to mandate that, the other side is people want the flexibility to schedule how they want,” he added.
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Playoff and practice changes
(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
The committee also tackled a number of items outside of alignment on Tuesday. Among them:
• The committee proposed expanding the 5A football field from 16 to 24 teams. The 5A alignment was created with this change in mind.
All six league champions, including the league of 10, would receive an automatic bid to the playoffs. The next 17 qualifiers would come from the final RPI standings of the regular season, with the exception of the league of 10.
The final playoff spot would be an at-large bid as determined by the seeding committee, using the criteria they will use to seed the tournament — including, but not limited to, things like RPI standing, head to head and strength of schedule.
• Classes 4A through 8-man changed their seeding criteria to where a conference champion in the top-10 of the seeded playoff bracket will host in Round 1, unless they are playing another league champion. In that case, the higher seed will host. Once seeded, the seeds of the teams will not change, regardless of who hosts the game.
For example, if the No. 10 seed is a league champion but the No. 7 is not, the No. 10 team would host the first-round game. If both are league champions, the No. 7 would host.
• The committee proposed expanding 6-man from an 8-week to a 9-week schedule. This would allow some teams to play a nine-game regular season, if they so choose.
• They discussed changing the date the teams can start practice. A proposal will come to the Legislative Council from the Centennial League which recommends that football follow the NFHS calendar.
That would mean practice in 2018 could start on Aug. 6 as opposed to Aug. 13. The football committee supports the proposal.
In essence, the proposal would add another week of practice on the front-end of the schedule. Playoff dates would be unaffected, and the season would start on Aug. 23-25, with a scrimmage date available on Aug. 16-18.
This would give all classes, save for 5A, the opportunity to have a bye week during the regular season.
• In conjunction with the practice discussion, the committee recommended changes to how teams practice during the start of practice. The recommended doing away with two-a-day practices.
The practice schedule would start with three days of helmets only, two days of pads and limited contact, and then full pads and full contact on the sixth day of practice. Currently, full contact is on the fourth day.
Lakewood senior Camilla Emsbo, left, celebrates with teammates during the Tigers’ home opener Tuesday. (Dennis Pleuss/Jeffco Athletics)
LAKEWOOD — Not even a week into the 2017-18 basketball season and Lakewood’s girls hoops team has already played five games.
“We are just jumping in. It’s a lot of games,” Lakewood senior Camilla Emsbo said of the Tigers’ 55-39 home opener victory Tuesday night against Arapahoe. “It’s a lot of fun. No complaints here, I love games.”
Lakewood coach Chris Poisson has a little bit of a different take. Poisson said he wouldn’t have minded a handful of practices after last year’s Class 5A state runner-up played four games at the La Jolla Country Day Tournament in California last week.
“We didn’t have time to fix much,” said Poisson, who will have played eight games by the end of this week. “We are doing it on the fly. We are doing it in games. There was progress. We aren’t where we will be.”
Lakewood’s Sassy Coleman (32) goes up strong. (Dennis Pleuss/Jeffco Athletics)
Lakewood (3-2 record), ranked No. 4 in the Class 5A girls basketball CHSAANow.com preseason poll, has changed up its offense after losing Kira Emsbo for the season. The twin sister of Camilla had surgery a few weeks ago to repair a torn ACL she suffered over the summer.
Without half the 6-foot-5 identical twins for the season, the Tigers won’t have the big size advantage it had hoped. Rebounding by committee is something Lakewood has it get used to do. Arapahoe (2-2) hit the offensive boards hard in the first half with some success and trailed just 34-27 at halftime.
“We have kind of revamped the whole offense,” said Camilla, who led the Tigers with 23 points. “We are just trying to find our flow in the new set. It might take awhile, but I think it will be worth it.”
Poisson said he saw progress in the Tigers offensively. Sophomore guard Nadia Trevizo had nine points in the first half. Senior Sassy Coleman finished in double-digits with 10 points.
“Our guards are the key,” Poisson said of Lakewood being successful on offense. “We know what we are going to get from Camilla. Everyone is going to defender her, but she is going to score. If you put five on her she is going to get points. She is special. We are at our best when our guards score with Nadia, Jessica (Woodhead) and Hannah (Renstrom).”
Lakewood’s Camilla Emsbo (2) had a game-high 23 points Tuesday. (Dennis Pleuss/Jeffco Athletics)
Lakewood didn’t shoot well in the second half, but Camilla was able to pour in five field goals and go 2-for-2 from the free-throw line. Coleman had a bucket inside and Woodhead hit a 3-pointer in the final minute.
The real story to the victory was the Tigers’ defense. The Warriors were held to just 12 points in the second half. Sophomore Kali March, who led Arapahoe with 12 points, had the lone field goal in the fourth quarter for the Warriors.
“Lakewood is all about defense,” Trevizo said.
Arapahoe scored just 2 points in the final 4:44 left in the game.
“We are trying to create our identity. The No. 1 part should be our defense,” Poisson said. “That can keep us in games when we aren’t scoring.”
Poisson takes his team to yet another tournament at the end of this week. The Tigers open at the Westminster Tournament at 4 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 7, against Legacy at Westminster High School.
Arapahoe has its home opener against No. 5 Highlands Ranch at 7 p.m. Thursday night.
Lakewood’s Hannah Renstrom (12) splits Arapahoe’s Anna McCollister (23) and Marley Delaney. (Dennis Pleuss/Jeffco Athletics)
AURORA — Nathan Mitchell, Dimitri Stanley and Darius Price all scored in double figures as Cherry Creek boys basketball opened its season with a 79-47 win over Gateway.
A few days after leading Eaglecrest to the Class 5A state title game, Raptors football coach Mike Schmitt announced that he is resigning.
Schmitt is moving back east, to Pennsylvania, according to Eaglecrest athletic director Vince Orlando, something that has been in the works since the beginning of the year. The move will enable the Schmitt family to be closer to to their family.
The search for a new coach will begin immediately, Orlando said.
“We are extremely grateful to coach Schmitt and his family for their dedication and commitment to Eaglecrest and our community these past eight years,” Orlando said in a statement. “Coach Schmitt’s contributions have strengthened our program, and our student-athletes have experienced numerous successes under his direction. We wish him, his wife Lenore, and their four children the best of luck in the future.”
Schmitt and his wife, Lenore, also serve as the head boys and girls track coaches for Eaglecrest. An interim coach will be named with the spring season a few months away.
“Through their leadership, our track athletes have experienced success at the league and state levels,” Orlando said.
Schmitt has been the head coach at Eaglecrest since 2010, going 49-40, including 24-2 over the past two seasons.
Eaglecrest raced to the championship game unbeaten this season, falling to Pomona in the highest-scoring 5A title game in history.
“Coach Schmitt and his staff have built a solid foundation with the resources in place to compete at an elite level for years to come,” Orlando said. “The future is bright for Raptor Football.”
Pueblo South football won the first state championship in the 59-year of the program this season. The man to lead them there? Ryan Goddard, who just finished his eighth season as coach of the Colts.
After going a combined 3-17 from 2011-12, Goddard has directed the steady rise of Pueblo South. Since 2013, his teams have gone 47-14.
Included, of course, is the 13-1 finish this season in which the Colts claimed the Class 4A championship with a win over traditional power Pine Creek.
But it’s not just the success Goddard has had. It’s the type of coach that he is. Goddard models the InSideOut coaching philosophy that promotes sports as a growth experience, something above wins and losses.
“I think they understand that we’re trying to make them better people,” Goddard said of his players in October. “I hope that’s what they get out of practice and games and all our summer workouts. Not only become a better player, but become better people.”
For all these reasons, Goddard has been named the 2017 Denver Broncos high school football coach of the year.
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Ryan Goddard bio
Years as head coach: 8 (55-37 overall)
Years at Pueblo South: 8 (55-37)
Previous stops: Pueblo South assistant (2003-09); Pueblo South head coach (2010-present).
Question: Something you mentioned at the press conference [before the title game] was that you guys were representing more than your school and your team. Can you dive into that a bit?
(Lance Wendt/LanceWendt.com)
Ryan Goddard: When I talked about that at the press conference, I was talking about a number of things. First: representing our community. That’s something we talk to our kids about throughout the season, throughout the school year, is how we’re always representing more than ourselves, and trying to be a part of something greater than ourselves.
Just having the opportunity to represent our community — which is such a great high school sports community — there’s not a place that you can go in town right now without someone just showing their gratitude to us and what we accomplished. I was just so extremely honored and humbled that our kids were able to represent Pueblo.
Pueblo’s an extremely proud place, and when Pueblo is going to take on whoever for a state championship, or in a state playoff game — you know, the week before, we had 6,000 people in the stands for a semifinal game.
The first time I looked up into the stands [during the championship game at Mile High] was right before kickoff, and it was just like, “Wow, Pueblo showed up.” I was impressed, and I kind of expected to Pueblo to show up, but I think for people that hadn’t seen Pueblo support, I think it was just an amazing sight.
Even more so than that, it being our first time in 59 years, there were so many people that laid the groundwork and put in so much time and effort into our program before I ever got here as a player, as an assistant coach — there were just so many people that we were trying to represent and make proud.
Q: What was your final message to your players before kickoff?
Goddard: (Laughs) Actually, we ran out of time. It was pretty brief, it was pretty quick. There wasn’t much that I had to say to get them going. They were all excited, very focused on the things that we needed to accomplish, and kind of the process of how we’re going to get there. I think the last thing that I told them was, “Let’s just go out and compete for as long as we possibly can. Let’s just go out and have fun, and let’s go do it with our brothers.”
That was pretty much it. Like I said, we basically ran out of time. We got back in the locker room, and I looked up and I’m like, “Oh, we better hurry, because we’ve got to get out for the national anthem.” And it was a quick prayer, 30-second speech from coach, and we went jogging back out.
Q: You guys came out firing [taking a 13-0 lead in the first quarter]. I think everyone in the stadium was like, “Whoa.” What’s that like, and did that give you guys some confidence?
Goddard: What we’ve done all year is take a lead. The first time we’d actually trailed in regulation was in the semifinals against Broomfield. We went down 7-0. But that was the only time we had trailed in regulation all season.
I think that’s kind of been our mentality: We wanted the ball, we wanted to get down the field, and we wanted to score as quickly as we could. Because we wanted to set the tempo for the game.We got stopped on our first possession, but then our defense went out and got a stop right away, as well. And then we kind of got settled in a little bit offensively.
I think, as we got on the field, one of the things that I think helped our kids was being able to go to the press conference on Tuesday, and having so many of our seniors that were just key players for us — because it wasn’t a shock to them at that point.
But I’ll tell you what: When I stood at the 50 in the center of the stadium and I looked around, it was a little breathtaking. It’s just incredible. But I think our kids kind of settled in after that first series. You know, they did the things that we’ve coached them to do, that we’ve prepared them to do.
And you know what? We’ve got really, really good players that execute on a high level, and that makes our job so much easier as coaches. And when those kids are having fun and just playing hard, it’s a special thing.
Q: So what’s it like, then, when you win the game and get handed the trophy? What is that feeling like?
(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
Goddard: I was fortunate enough to win a basketball state title as a senior at South. And I remember that moment. [CHSAA assistant commissioner] Bert Borgmann actually handed me the trophy. But I sprinted to get that trophy.
And in this moment, I was just so happy for our kids. People have asked me, “Is it better as a player or as a coach?” And I think that this one is just so amazing, one, because this is a football state championship, and something that our school hasn’t accomplished; but, two, it was about 65 other people and just the opportunity to serve 65 other people — whether it was a player or an assistant coach, or whatever — just the opportunity to serve others and give someone else that opportunity to have that special moment in their life.
Q: For a lot of your players, the seniors, this will be the last football game they’ll ever play in competitively. What is, or what has been, your message to those kids?
Goddard: We talk about a lot of that during the season. The first thing we talk about is that whenever you prepare for anything in life, you don’t want to have any regrets. As you play 14 games, it was the oddest week of practice, just because there was no “next week.” You understood that there was no next week win or lose, so it was just kind of odd.
One of the first things I mentioned to our guys postgame was that this wasn’t going to the best moment in their life, how this was going to be an opportunity that they could look back on and understand the things that got them to this point.
We had a couple of mottos this year. We started off the year with our summer workouts with the motto “Uncommon.” That was just basically, we’re going to do common things in an uncommon way with uncommon effort. So we talked about how that got us to where we were to start the season. Just paying attention to detail, just focusing on the things that we can control, and doing it to the best of our ability at all times.
And the second part was a little bit more about the process and kind of the journey, and that was just our motto of “Chase excellence,” and simply just how that relates to life and how you just want to be the best version of yourself. You want to be the best version of yourself today, you want to be a little bit better than you were yesterday. You don’t have to worry about anything outside of the things you can control, just be the best version of you.
That was something our kids really bought into. I know every quote that [senior wide receiver] Marcell [Barbee] threw out there this week was about “chasing excellence,” but I think it’s something they believe, and it’s something they can relate to and take with forever, as well.
