There were a number of major movers as CHSAANow released the first football rankings of the regular season on Monday.
New Wheat Ridge football coach Dan Reardon. (Tracy Renck)
Pueblo East (Class 3A), Discovery Canyon (3A), and Wheat Ridge (4A) all made big jumps after being unranked in the preseason.
Pueblo East had the biggest climb, and wound up at No. 3 in the 3A poll after winning its first two games. The Eagles beat Longmont, No. 4Â in the preseason 4A poll, in Zero Week, then topped Coronado, the defending 3A champion which has since moved up to 4A, in Week 1.
Discovery Canyon is No. 6 in 3A this week. Last Thursday, the Thunder beat Silver Creek, the 3A runner-up a season ago which has also moved up to 4A.
And Wheat Ridge, also off to a 2-0 start under new coach Dan Reardon in 4A, has won its games by a combined 91-0. The Farmers are No. 5 in this week’s 4A poll.
In total, those moves were just a microcosm of the new rankings, which saw massive change. All seven polls got at least one new team, with 4A and 6-man getting four new members, and 3A adding three.
There’s also a new No. 1 team in 2A, where Brush takes over for Platte Valley.
The least amount of change occurred in 5A, where Valor Christian continues its stranglehold on the No. 1 spot following its physical win over Pomona. The Eagles received all 13 first-place votes.
Teams Nos. 2-4 stayed the same behind them: Cherry Creek (which beat Regis Jesuit), Cherokee Trail and Pomona. Grandview joined the top five this week, bumping up three places from its preseason No. 8 spot.
More photos. (Tim Visser/TimVisserPhotography.com)
Chatfield remained at No. 6, Fairview moved up three spots to No. 7, Regis Jesuit fell to No. 8 and Ralston Valley remained at No. 9.
The lone newcomer in 5A is Overland, which joined at No. 10.
In addition to Wheat Ridge in 4A, new teams include No. 8 Vista Ridge, No. 9 Falcon and No. 10 Fort Collins. Pine Creek remained atop that poll following its escape of Falcon’s upset bid.
Besides Pueblo East and Discovery Canyon, D’Evelyn also joined the 3A ranking. Lutheran stayed atop that poll after its overtime win in Texas last week.
2A added No. 9 Eaton, while 1A added No. 7 Meeker. Paonia is still No. 1 in 1A.
The 8-man ranking added No. 8 Akron and No. 9 Springfield. Dayspring Christian continues to lead that pack.
Finally, 6-man added No. 6 Prairie, No. 7 Pawnee, No. 8 Walsh and No. 10 Cotopaxi. Stratton/Liberty remained in the top spot.
The rankings, voted upon by coaches and select media members, are the official polls of the Association. During the regular season, polls will be released each Monday.
Voted upon by coaches and select media members around the state. These rankings have no bearing on postseason seeding, except in 5A where they are used as part of the seeding criteria.
Valor Christian is the preseason No. 1 in 5A. (Kevin Keyser/KeyserImages.com)
Defending champions head six of football’s seven preseason CHSAANow.com rankings, which were unveiled Monday morning.
The lone exception is Lutheran in Class 3A — which saw both its champion (Coronado) and runner-up (Silver Creek) move up to 4A this cycle.
In fact, that ranking was also the most split of any other, with both Lutheran and preseason No. 2 Delta both getting three first-place votes. Lutheran got the No. 1 nod with 65 total points. Delta had 53 points.
Lutheran was eliminated in the first round of the 3A playoffs last season, while Delta made the semifinals. Lutheran is entering its first season under new coach Blair Hubbard, formerly of Faith Christian.
Other preseason No. 1 teams are Platte Valley (2A), Paonia (1A), Dayspring Christian (8-man) and Stratton/Liberty (6-man).
The rankings are voted upon by coaches and select media members, and are the official polls of the Association. During the regular season, rankings will be released each Monday.
ThunderRidge 31, Overland 16, Monarch 7, Legend 5, Douglas County 3, Grand Junction 3, Mullen 2, Doherty 1, Fountain-Fort Carson 1.
Class 4A
RK
TEAM
PTS
1
Pine Creek (11)
110
2
Montrose
81
3
Pueblo South
75
4
Longmont
67
5
Denver South
53
6
Broomfield
43
7
Standley Lake
36
8
Dakota Ridge
28
9
Pueblo Centennial
26
10
Windsor
25
Others receiving votes:
Pueblo West 18, Vista Ridge 17, Loveland 13, Fort Collins 5, Coronado 3, Palmer Ridge 2, Wheat Ridge 2, Falcon 1.
Class 3A
RK
TEAM
PTS
1
Lutheran (3)
65
2
Delta (3)
53
3
Holy Family
52
4
Rifle (1)
40
5
Roosevelt
33
6
Evergreen
25
7
The Classical Academy
19
8
Palisade
16
9
Lewis-Palmer (1)
15
10
Vista PEAK
11
Others receiving votes:
Fort Morgan 9, Northridge 9, Pueblo East 7, Mead 4, Conifer 3, Discovery Canyon 3, Erie 3, Frederick 3, Woodland Park 2, Eagle Valley 1, Pueblo Central 1.
Class 2A
RK
TEAM
PTS
1
Platte Valley (5)
66
2
Faith Christian (1)
64
3
Brush (1)
54
4
Manitou Springs
41
5
Kent Denver
38
6
Florence
31
7
Strasburg
24
8
Bennett
23
9
Lamar
16
10
Olathe
9
Others receiving votes:
Gunnison 7, La Junta 4, Sterling 4, Eaton 2, Middle Park 1, Moffat County 1.
Class 1A
RK
TEAM
PTS
1
Paonia (4)
63
2
Centauri (2)
58
3
Limon (1)
53
4
Buena Vista
49
5
Resurrection Christian
40
6
Burlington
36
7
Monte Vista
30
8
Yuma
13
9
Wray
10
10
Cedaredge
8
Others receiving votes:
Platte Canyon 6, Colorado Springs Christian 5, Meeker 4, Holyoke 3, Hotchkiss 3, Rye 2, Front Range Christian 1, Wiggins 1.
Regis Jesuit’s Diani Akigbogun is the 5A girls basketball player of the year. (Ray Chen/arrayphoto.com)
The 2013-14 all-state girls basketball teams are presented by CHSAANow.com, ColoradoPreps.com and MaxPreps.
These teams were created following a lengthy process which included nominations from leagues and coaches, and then a vote of coaches.
The players who received the most votes in their classification were selected as the player of the year in their class.
Those players of the year: Regis Jesuit’s Diani Akigbogun (5A), Mesa Ridge’s Gabby Purnell (4A), Holy Family’s Katie Chavez (3A), Akron’s Jordan Baer (2A) and South Baca’s Allyson Grahn (1A).
Use the menu below to navigate to the class of your choosing.
LOVELAND — Lucia Vlkova is going to enjoy living in the United States.
The 6-foot junior forward for Norwood, a foreign exchange student from Slovakia, helped lead the Mavericks to the Class 1A state championship in a thrilling 38-34 victory over Caliche on Saturday at the Budweiser Events Center.
“If I have my family here, I will probably stay,” Vlkova said of her year in America. “I just love it here.”
It’s fair to say coach Greg King is equally happy to have the versatile player in his lineup.
Jordan Williams, a junior guard, has been the go-to player throughout the season for the Mavericks with impressive averages of 16.9 points, 3.9 assists, and 2.8 steals, but Williams needed a sidekick to claim the crown.
Vlkova provided that with 11 points and a dominant defensive performance with several steals, blocks, and deflected passes. Her height, length, and jumper provided a matchup problem for Caliche throughout and she displayed a wildly improved shot.
“You know she has been a project all year,” King said about his growing forward. “She came to us without being a real big offensive threat on her club team. She’s worked and worked, and I’ll tell you what, up here in the regionals and district finals, she’s really blossomed. Jordan Williams has been our key person. She was the MVP of our league. She struggled a little up here, but everybody knew that. Lucia was the unknown.”
Vlkova was critical, but the title was won on the strength of Norwood’s hard-nosed team.
“We call this team a bunch of grinders,” King said. “We just grind out wins, grind out possessions, and against that team we had to. We were aggressive, physical, and we just withstood every attack they had against us, everything they threw at us.”
Caliche wanted to play their typical high-paced style utilizing their speed and guard play, but Norwood controlled the tempo and led by a couple of points most of the game.
“It was a different game for us,” Caliche coach David Huss said. “A lot of that has to do with the level of the game being a state title game I think. It probably weighed on them a little bit.
“A lot of it was Norwood and the style of defense they played. They got us out of our game and we just had a lot of uncanny things happen, just missed layups and miscommunication, and things that never happened before. I don’t have an answer as to why that happened, other than maybe it was the stage we were on.”
Norwood held a 12-8 first quarter lead and were up 22-20 at the halftime break in a defensive battle.
The Buffaloes had a few flashes of their superior speed in transition and were down only three, 34-31, with two minutes and ten seconds remaining. Shaylyn Johnson stole the ball and streaked down court for an open layup, but the ball rimmed out.
Norwood’s Shania Snow drained 4-of-6 at the charity stripe in the final three minutes of play to seal the Mavericks’ first girls basketball state title since 1983 and second in the program’s history.
Jordan Williams came through with five big fourth-quarter points and 12 in the game. Shania Snow chipped in eight.
Jessica Taylor was effective as a low-post scorer with 12 points for Caliche and Shaylyn Johnson, the Buffaloes’ leading scorer this season, had 10 points, but Norwood made a few more plays down the stretch and gutted out a fantastic win.
“We felt that we were going to have to do it defensively,” King said about Norwood’s gameplan against the Buffaloes. “Offensively, we knew that if it was a high-scoring game, it favors them at their pace. For the most part, I think we handled their pressure really well, and it’s just a fantastic feeling.”
King, the girls coach at Norwood for the past four seasons, has now won three state titles in his coaching career with the first two coming as the head boys coach at Stratton. He is the boys coach for Norwood, as well.
“You feel for the kids, because the kids put the work in,” King said. “It’s a great, great reward for what they’ve done for four years. It’s not about me, it’s about them.”
“I was thinking about it all season,” Viukova admitted about the potential for a state title team.
“I think it’s all about the coach,” Viukova argued.
In the end, it was the perfect recipe for a state title at Norwood with great players and great coaching.
