Through 100 minutes, there was no give as Class 3A No. 2 Salida and No. 4 Atlas Prep boys soccer battled to a 0-0 tie on Tuesday.
Month: October 2019
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Photos: No. 2 Regis Jesuit field hockey shuts out Liberty
Two second-half goals paved the way for No. 2 Regis Jesuit field hockey in a 3-0 win over Liberty on Tuesday.
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Undefeated Battle Mountain boys soccer views itself as an underrated No. 1 team
(Rex Keep) The most impressive moment of the season (so far) for Battle Mountain boys soccer didn’t even come in an official game.
But it certainly showed the degree of talent that the Huskies possess on the pitch. It was during a foundation game that a ball was heading right at senior Danny Barajas. Rather than knock it down with his chest or try to head the ball to a teammate, he did something only seen on SportsCenter’s Top 10 plays.
He let loose a vicious bicycle kick and sent the ball into the net.
“It was spectacular,” Battle Mountain coach David Cope said when describing the moment.
In a way, Cope is also trying to describe his team with that adjective. Battle Mountain’s season has been nothing short of spectacular to this point. The Huskies (8-0-1 overall) have certainly gained the attention of the CHSAANow.com poll voters and currently stand as the No. 1 team in the state.
Yet in a way, they still manage to fly under the radar a bit.
“We always feel like we’re fighting a little bit for respect even though we’ve been to state final twice, we went in 2012 and 2016,” Cope said. “Anytime we go down to the Front Range we still fight for credibility.”
(Rex Keep) Once they take the field, the credibility tends to become a little more real. The Huskies have arguably the perfect balance of talent in all 11 positions. It starts with Barajas, a “special player” according to Cope. His 10 goals lead the team and he’s second on the Huskies when it comes to assists.
Midfielder Louis Castillo sets the tone defensively, even though he has the ability to play up and help on the offensive side.
His work defensively also makes sophomore keeper Cruz Ramirez better in his position. To date this season he has four shutouts to his name and has only let five shots get by him. And it’s an experience he gets to share with his brother, Bryant.
A football player a year ago, Bryant made the switch to soccer in part for the chance to play with Cruz. It’s paying off as they have a chance to do something special this season.
“(Bryant) watched his brother play last year and he wanted to be a part of it,” Cope said. “I have a really good relationship with the football coaches and we just talked about it. That’s a really great opportunity for the two of them to play together. And so this spring he made the decision to come over and play soccer this year.”
The timing worked out and with two goals this season, Bryant has helped the team get to where it is. But it’s not satisfied with a No. 1 ranking by its name in October. The goal is for the Huskies to battle through the Class 4A playoffs, amid tough competition from teams like Air Academy, Durango and Glenwood Springs.
A semifinal team last year, Glenwood Springs is the only team responsible for a slight blemish on Battle Mountain’s record, a 1-1 tie on Sept. 26.
With just a couple of weeks away from the start of the postseason, Cope and his boys like what they see on the field and think they have the talent and the drive to make 2019 a special season.
I look at our starting 11 and even out to 14 deep and there’s not a visible weakness,” Cope said. “Out of everyone on the 2016 team that got to the final, he was the only freshman that was playing in that game.”
And he has every intention in playing in that game again later this fall and maybe letting loose one or two more spectacular bicycle kicks.
(Alan Versaw/stoutroadsportspage.com) -
Arvada West/Columbine/Green Mt. on 10/1
Event type: Triangular
Host: Arvada WestTeam scores Rank School Score 1 Arvada West 174.575 2 Columbine 158.325 3 Green Mountain 172.8 Vault Rank Name School Score 1 Payton Roberts Arvada West 9.575 2 Emry Krems Columbine 9.325 3 Sydney Tawater Arvada West 90.75 Bars Rank Name School Score 1 Kayla Powell Arvada West 9.25 2 Joslynn Miller Arvada West 8.975 3 Kenzie O’Neal Columbine 8.9 Beam Rank Name School Score 1 Lucy Melnert Green Mountain 9.45 2 Emily Belmonte Green Mountain 9.45 3 Katelyn Novacek Arvada West 8.9 Floor Rank Name School Score 1 Kelly Heald Arvada West 9.5 2 Payton Roberts Arvada West 9.2 3 Emry Krens Columbine 9.175 All-Around Rank Name School Score 1 Kayla Powell Arvada West 30.025 2 Emry Krems Columbine 35.725 3 Lucy Meinert Green Mountain 35.125 -
Gymnastics results: Thornton/Fort Morgan on 10/1
Gymnastics results: Thornton/Fort Morgan on 10/1
Event type: Dual
Host: ThorntonTeam scores Rank School Score 1 Thornton 174.9 2 Fort Morgan 52.65 Vault Rank Name School Score 1 Rachel Ardehali Thornton 9.25 2 Karstyn Wittwer Thornton 9 3 Talynn Gaccetta Thornton 8.8 Bars Rank Name School Score 1 Karstyn Wittwer Thornton 9.1 2 Grace Snortland Thornton 8.8 3 Talynn Gaccetta Thornton 8.7 Beam Rank Name School Score 1 Talynn Gaccetta Thornton 9 2 Ella Delacy Thornton 8.3 3 Kennedy Waltenburg Thornton 8.3 Floor Rank Name School Score 1 Karstyn Wittwer Thornton 9.6 2 Rachel Ardehali Thornton 9.35 3 Nicole Cleveland Thornton 9.15 All-Around Rank Name School Score 1 Rachel Ardehali Thornton 34.7 2 Brooke Stevenson Thornton 32.7 3 Sophia Abeyta Thornton 31.15 -
Denver Broncos high school football coach of the week: Branson/Kim’s Brad Doherty
(Photo courtesy of Brad Doherty) The 2018 season was not kind to Branson/Kim. Winners of just one game, the Bearcats had one of the more difficult seasons in all of Colorado high school football.
But those days appear to be long gone.
Through the first five games of the 2019 season, Branson/Kim has yet to suffer a loss. And it’s not like the team is scraping together games or have just gotten lucky. So far this season the Bearcats have outscored opponents 271-69. They’ve almost doubled the amount of points they scored a year ago and have a legitimate chance to end the regular season unbeaten.
And everyone in the state is noticing.
In recent weeks, they’ve cracked the top 10 of the 6-man state football rankings and are hoping to remain a fixture there for the remainder of the season. Head coach Brad Doherty has done a great job turning things around in just his second year at the helm but will be the first to pass on credit to the rest of his staff and to his players.
But considering the remarkable turnaround the program has seen, Doherty has been named the Denver Broncos High School football coach of the week.
The Broncos coach of the week is selected in partnership with the Broncos and CHSCA. Find a complete list of winners on this page.
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Brad Doherty bio
Years as head coach: 2 (6-7)
Years at Branson/Kim: 2 (6-7, 5-0 this season)
Previous stops: Branson/Kim assistant coach (2015-17); Branson/Kim head coach (2018-present).
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Dan Mohrmann: Why did you initially get into coaching?
Brad Doherty: Well, I was asked by our head coach at the time when we started our football program to assist. I responded to the need. I also got into coaching to spend time with the boys and young men in our community.
In addition to working at our school I’m also the pastor of the only church here in Branson. My wife and I have been involved in youth ministry and kids programs for many years and we noticed that we were connecting less and less with kids as their schedules got fuller and busier with junior high and high school activities, particularly sports and FFA.
We both felt the best way to stay involved with the teens in our school was to be involved in their activities. I began helping out as much as I could with basketball and was asked to be an assistant football coach by our program’s first head coach, Mr. Brad Caldwell.
My wife and I also have three sons (one in high school and two in junior high), all of whom play football. Coaching is a great way for me to spend as much time with my boys as I can.
Mohrmann: What was appealing about the idea of coming into a new program?
Doherty: It was something brand new for our school. We’ve only had a football program for five years. So this was a brand new experience to start something new for our community, just to learn the game and to be around somebody that’s coached for 30 plus years and be around a great group of boys.
Mohrmann: What do you think it’s like from your kids’ perspective to be coached by you?
Doherty: I’d like to think that my players feel respected and treated fairly by me and our coaching staff. I respond best to people when I feel respected by them — this is as true now as it was when I was a teenager. We also love to laugh at ourselves and each other.
Mohrmann: How much has your staff played into the turnaround you’ve had from last year to this year?
Doherty: I am currently the AD and head football coach for our school. After last year’s very difficult season (1-7 record and only nine players), my one assistant coach from last year, Chris Martinez, and I realized we needed to improve our program to give the young men we’ve been blessed with the best experience possible.
Last spring, our junior high football coach, John Cranson, encouraged me to cast a vision statement for our program. Working with him and Coach Martinez, we came up with the following statement for our program: “The Bearcat Football Program exists to develop young adults into student-athletes that strive for personal, academic, and athletic excellence.” This captures our shared belief that our goal is building up young men of character and integrity, and football happens to be a tool we get to use to help accomplish that goal.
The next step in the program improvement process was asking for help. Chris and I reached out to several men in our community with football experience and a heart for helping kids. We were blessed with the response.
We added two new assistant coaches: Adam Lucero (a teacher at our co-op school, Kim) and Carlos Duran. I can’t give enough credit to Coach Lucero for the guidance and inspiration he’s been to the team. He has instilled a belief in the boys that they can accomplish great things if they put in the work. His experience playing college football and his exposure to great coaching staffs has brought an invaluable perspective to everything we do.
Very early on in the process I could very easily see his natural gifting as a coach and his heart for the team, so I gave him the reigns and freedom to run with the program. Several other men in the community also stepped up to assist during games as additional eyes and voices on the sidelines. With this level of commitment from men in our community, we had a great foundation of leadership going into this season.
In 6-man football, just a few kids makes a huge difference. Last year, we only had nine varsity players. This made for challenging practices (not enough for a 6-on-6 scrimmage) and nearly impossible games where most of our boys had to play every down.
This season we knew we had seven returning players and four incoming freshmen. The new vision and coaching staff helped generate some excitement and we added four new boys that didn’t play last year.
It also helps that those boys are pretty athletic! With 15 boys on the roster, we can run much more productive practices and have enough fresh legs on the sidelines to last the whole game.
With the addition of new coaching staff and more players, I’ve become more of a GM and less of a “head coach.” I focus less on X’s and O’s and more on strategic and logistic functions for the team.
My duties revolve around travel planning for games and practices, scheduling weekly team dinners and foosball matches at my house, getting game film for upcoming opponents, washing water bottles and making Gatorade, making sure the field gets painted, setting up video recording equipment, borrowing bleachers from our co-op school, checking eligibility and keeping all of “my boys” accountable.
Mohrmann: What’s the hardest part about now having these expectations? You’re 5-0, are you losing sleep at all over this winning streak; that it might come to an end?
Doherty: Well, hopefully if it will come to an end, it comes to an end before we get to the postseason. We don’t want it to come through and end there. It’s a good bunch of boys, a good bunch of athletes that, that have really bonded well.
The challenge at this point is keeping them focused on the task at hand. Not getting caught up in the attention or rankings or if we may or may not show up on Colorado Preps or MaxPreps or wherever, but just taking care of their business in the right now. Keeping their heads where they need to be is kind of a challenge.
Mohrmann: How do they respond to that challenge of just focusing on the task at hand and not maybe taking a peek at these media outlets to see if people are giving them the credit that they need?
Doherty: I think they are doing it well. You know, we’re still young. We’re still the underdog, Yes, we cracked the top 10, but we’re not near the top in everybody else’s eyes. That kind of fuels the fire and we encourage them to not really take any of that into consideration.
Those decisions are made by people that don’t know them and only they know them and their desire and determination. We try to just keep it focused inward as much as possible.
Mohrmann: I’ve talked to players who have really enjoyed playing the 6-man game. How much fun is it or how challenging is it to coach the 6-man game?
Doherty: It’s a blast. It is a couple of notches up from backyard football. The hits are just as hard and just as fast. And I think they may even be a little faster and harder because the field’s more wide open.
You have to be creative with your plays. You have to be creative with your defensive schemes. But you can’t get away from the fundamentals. If you don’t block, you don’t win ball games. You don’t tackle, you don’t win ball games.
You have to think outside the traditional box, but not let go of the fundamentals.
Mohrmann: I’ve seen 6-man games and they’re often a scoring Bonanza except for the teams that have been playing you this year. What is it been about your defense that’s kept every team from scoring more than 20 points?
Doherty: We have a bunch of boys that have embraced that dog mentality. They don’t like allowing people to score. They take it personal. Not against the other players but against their own expectations. And it’s their goal to keep everybody out of the end zone and they put it on the line.
We hang our hat on defense and they’ve really embraced that. A lot of that came from our new assistant coach Adam Lucero instilling that fight in each of them and they’ve risen to the occasion.
Mohrmann: You have three regular season games left and then the playoffs get rolling. What’s in store for the rest of the season for Branson/Kim?
Doherty: We’re really trying to take it one game at a time and stay focused. We have two home games and one more away game, I believe. It’s really a matter of keeping the boys kind of looking at it one step at a time, not getting too excited about the postseason or about our conference and really tried to prepare every game like we’re preparing for the championship.
Whether it’s against a Kit Carson or a Stratton/Liberty or one of the perennial powerhouses, that’s what we want them to prepare for every practice.
Mohrmann: What’s it going to be like going into next year for you now the expectations of this season where you came out on and caught fire and won a lot of games?
Doherty: There will be an expectation to continue the success. We will lose five seniors, which will be a challenge for us. But we will gain six freshman, several of which are pretty athletic and the kids that we’ll still have from this year moving forward are a great core.
I think we’ve got the tools in place to continue the success, but yes the expectation will definitely be there.
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Erie slugger Kat Sackett is hitting a ton of homers — when teams decide to pitch to her
(Paul Soriano) Game days for Erie softball star Kat Sackett are a walk in the park — literally.
Sackett leads the state in home runs (11) and slugging percentage (1.613) and is among the leaders in on-base-percentage (.758, fourth), runs batted in (34, sixth) and batting average (.659, seventh) for the Tigers, who began the week ranked No. 4 in the Class 4A poll with a record of 14-3 overall.
Given those numbers, many opposing teams have resorted to walking the senior catcher/first baseman rather than giving her a chance to swing the bat and do some real damage on the diamond.
Heading into October, Sackett has been walked a whopping 19 times in 66 plate appearances.
“Kat hits the ball consistently, and she hits the ball consistently hard,” explained Erie first-year head coach Vanessa Smith. “And when we have runners on base, probably a good 90 percent of the time she’s going to produce for us.
“As a coach, if I were on the other team, I would do the same thing, to tell you the truth,” she said with a laugh.
(Paul Soriano) The left-handed hitting Sackett has also struck out just one time this season, and her ability to make contact and put the ball in play is another reason why most teams devise a game-plan just for her.
“That’s an attribute to Kat’s overall personality and demeanor,” said Smith of the lone strikeout. “She’s a fighter, man. She’s a competitor, and she competes all the time.”
So it’s no surprise that the extra attention doesn’t faze Sackett one bit.
“I always take the same approach into the box. You never know what’s going to happen,” she said. “So I always take the approach that they’re going to throw to me. When I get in the box, I’m always ready. If they send me to first, then they send me to first.”
Sackett, a four-year varsity starter, earned all-state honors as a sophomore and as a junior. This past summer she added a “reset routine” to her arsenal of skills.
“It’s a mental routine that I go through before and during [each] at-bat,” she explained. “Basically, I do something physical. I say something verbal in my head. I take a deep breath and then I exhale. That’s usually when I get in the box and take my cut.
“The physical portion takes place in the on-deck circle,” Sackett added. “Mentally, I just try to think of how I can help my team: ‘What can I do to help us score a run?’ I find it to be really beneficial.”
Sackett learned the routine this past summer during a visit to Marshall University, where she plans to continue her softball career after graduating from Erie next spring.
“I always thought that I wanted to go to school by the beach. Most girls do,” she recalled with a laugh. “My first visit was to [the University of North Florida].”
But Sackett visited Marshall a few weeks later and soon realized that the beach wasn’t her destiny, after all.
“There is just something really special about their community because of everything that has gone down there,” she said of the Nov. 14, 1970 plane crash that killed 37 players on the Thundering Herd football team, eight members of the coaching staff, 25 boosters and five crew members.
“The whole community is really supportive of Marshall. Everybody out there is all for Marshall,” Sackett added. “When I went out there and saw this different perspective of a community, I knew that was where I needed to be.”
Before heading out to West Virginia, though, Sackett and her teammates have some unfinished business on their agenda.
Erie is a perennial power in softball and leads all divisions with 11 state championships to its credit. But the last time the Tigers walked off the field as the top 4A team in the state was back in 2010, when Sackett was in the third grade.
As a freshman in 2016, she was a key contributor on a squad that was undefeated (24-0) until it lost to Valor Christian in the championship game. In each of the last two seasons, the Tigers lost in the quarterfinals of the state tournament.
While Sackett and her teammates would love another chance to play for the state title, they are making sure to take time to enjoy every bit of the journey along the way.
(Paul Soriano) “Our [team’s] motto this season is ‘Remember Why We Started,’” Sackett said. “It’s really easy to get caught up in [things] like winning state, winning games. But at the end of the day, high school season is our opportunity to play softball for the love of the game, when it’s not a job.
“Our goal this year is to play for each other and remember why we started. If that turns out the way we would like it to, it does. But if it doesn’t, we spent time loving each other and loving the game.”
It’s a mantra that Smith fully supports for her squad. The strategy was to help give her senior class of nine players – her senior leaders – ownership of the team.
“When female athletes are empowered to lead and own their season the outcome is just a lot better,” Smith said. “So I told them I wanted them to pick a quote or motto that our team would follow the entire year.
“That was the motto that they came up with, and the reason they came up with that is because a lot of these seniors are coming off a huge summer of playing competitive ball,” she said. “They average about 150 games a summer. During those games and those tournaments, they’re getting recruited a lot, so there is a lot of pressure on them.
“From my experience, when you have that much pressure on you … it’s easy to forget the reason why you’re playing,” Smith added. “It kind of gets gray and fuzzy because you’re so focused on getting recruited and getting a college offer.
“You forget and lose your perspective of why you started playing this game and how much you love this game. [They] chose that quote together because they want this last season in high school to be fun. It helps them to play for each other, to have fun and to remember why they love the game.”
Sackett says she started playing softball when she was “probably” six-years-old, in part, to be like her older brother, Gavin, who is two years her senior.
“My brother started off in baseball, and I eventually followed in his footsteps,” she remembered.
And what is it about the game that kept Sackett coming back for more, allowing her to put up such eye-popping high school numbers (a .491 career average along with 30 HRs, 126 RBIs, 96 runs scored and 54 walks)?
“I love that I get to learn from people all the time,” she admitted. “At first, you never realize why you’re playing a sport. You’re just having fun. As I have grown older and had the opportunity to play with some really amazing and respected athletes, my favorite aspect has been learning from them and growing as an athlete and as a person.”
(Paul Soriano) Sackett is quick to shine a spotlight on fellow senior Madysun Vaughan as another one of Erie’s key contributors. With a team-leading 35 RBIs, 10 HRs and a .483 batting average, the praise is well deserved.
“On the field, Mady Vaughan is my rock. Not only is she an amazing athlete, but she just has this wiseness to her … I don’t know how to explain it,” Sackett explained. “If I ever have a game where I’m not doing my reset routine, or I’m not focused, she has this way of bringing everybody together and focusing everybody. That’s really amazing.
“I also get to play with my best friend, Megan Loveland, and that’s really special,” Sackett added. “She’s my pitcher. She brings this happiness, this energy to the team, and she believes in every single one of us.”
Loveland leads the pitching staff with a record of 10-2 and 58 strikeouts in 14 appearances for the Tigers.
Despite being a little hesitant at starting her senior season with a new coach, Sackett soon bought in to having Smith at the helm.
“I was really, really close with our old coach, Harold Simmons [now an assistant softball coach at the University of Northern Colorado]. Going into this year, I was kind of resistant to a new coach,” Sackett confessed. “But then I got to know Coach Smith, and she’s just amazing. She always has our backs. Her saying is ‘I’m going to be hard on you on the field, but I am going to love you harder off the field.’
“She follows that 100 percent, and she has been amazing.”
Smith is glad that Sackett is on her side, as well.
“She’s an absolute natural at leading people, at motivating people, at inspiring people both on and off the field,” Smith said. “Kat is one of the hardest workers on our team. She doesn’t cut corners. She expects a lot of herself, and she expects a lot of her teammates as well.”
Winning the championship this season after an eight-year drought won’t be an afternoon stroll for Erie, however.
Obstacles include, but are not limited to, defending state champion and Tri-Valley rival Holy Family, which is currently ranked No. 1 with a record of 16-1; second-ranked Golden (17-1); and No. 3 Pueblo South (15-1).
But with just four weeks left in her high school career, Sackett realizes that, regardless of how the final results fall, this will be a season to remember.
“For four years, I have been playing with the same nine teammates,” she said. “It’s going to be weird not to have them by my side in college. They’re most definitely like my second family.”
(Paul Soriano)