AURORA — Complete results after the first day of the 2016 Class 5A girls golf state tournament at CommonGround Golf Course, as well as Day 2 tee times.
Loveland alum Alec Hansen, now a junior with Oklahoma’s baseball program. (OU athletic communications)
Kevin Gausman, Marco Gonzales, Ryan Burr.
Alec Hansen.
Loveland High School alumnus Alec Hansen listed the aforementioned three names as inspiration for Colorado baseball. Hansen may soon be joining them as inspiration for others.
The 6-foot-7 junior won’t have to wait long for his name to be called in the 2016 MLB Draft. He was previously taken in the 25th round of the 2013 MLB Draft by the Colorado Rockies straight out of high school, but was a likely high selection if he was considered signable.
Hansen turned down the Rockies and opted instead to go to Oklahoma.
“I’ve gotten to see better competition, and figure out what it takes to get to the next level and to be the best at the next level,” Hansen said recently. “I have a good picture of that now.”
Hansen began the year with talk of a potential No. 1-overall pick in this year’s draft. He has a career 4.55 ERA with 156 strikeouts and a 5-11 record. The move to pursue college over taking the money with the Rockies was considered a good decision in the baseball world as it set up Hansen for the possibility of a top draft pick.
However, Hansen has, at times, struggled at the collegiate level.
“I see that stuff – I read it – so I know what the expectations are, and the expectations are what got to me a little bit at the beginning of the year,” Hansen said. “When I would have a bad outing, it made everything more frustrating than it usually would be just because I know what I can do, I know the expectations are there, and just not living up to them.”
Hansen has grown over the year and changed his mentality as he gets back on track. He was named the Big 12’s co-pitcher of the week on Monday after throwing six shutout innings and allowing just two hits in a 12-0 win over Kansas State on Sunday. Hansen struck out nine against just one walk.
“I know I’m one of the best pitchers in college baseball. That just pushes me to work harder to achieve my potential,” Hansen said. “Just doing my thing and working hard, keep getting better and letting that stuff take care of itself.”
As Hansen tries to keep his thoughts away from the buzz he is generating in the draft, the state of Colorado – mainly Loveland – has its eyes and ears trained on it.
“We have players that are following him, keeping up to date. He definitely is a topic of conversation around our baseball field,” said current Loveland head coach Jerod Cronquist, who arrived after Hansen graduated. “Any time Loveland baseball can make the news – national headlines – for something like that, obviously going to have a positive effect on our program. I think it also helps our players realize if you’re a good ball player, you’re going to get noticed.”
Fairview alum Ryan Madden is a freshman at Oklahoma, and now a teammate of Hansen’s. (OU athletic communications)
Oklahoma teammate and former 5A player of the year at Fairview, Ryan Madden, elaborated on what the high draft pick would mean for the state.
“It gets people recognizing (baseball), especially within the state,” Madden said. “People putting focus on baseball as their first sport as opposed to football or basketball.”
“That would be great for Colorado because there are some extremely talented players here. For the national scene, to get a glimpse of that, it’s just going to help Colorado baseball,” Cronquist added. “We have players producing all over the country collegiately, but to get a high draft pick is well-deserved for the state of Colorado and the talent we have here.”
For the amount of talent that Colorado possesses, the recognition doesn’t match up. Colorado isn’t typically considered a hotbed for baseball talent. But, Colorado has a shorter season compared to states that have the ability to play year round.
“It’s tough when you only get 19 games a season compared to schools in California and Texas, but the talent here, I think stacks up anywhere,” Cronquist said.
Cronquist and Hansen’s time never overlapped at Loveland, but Cronquist remembers watching Hansen pitch against him during his time coaching at Thompson Valley.
“You could tell back then that he had all the talent to go as far as he wanted and that’s a testament to his work ethic and the coaching staff,” Cronquist said. “Because there are a ton of physically talented players out there who don’t enter the conversation to be No. 1 overall picks – they don’t put in the work or aren’t coachable – so credit to him and his coaches along the way for helping develop him to get to this point.”
Hansen said he will forever remember something his high school coach, Jake Marshall, said to him as a freshman.
“Usually kids don’t make JV at Loveland freshman year, but he put me on JV and he was my head coach, and he told me to stay humble,” Hansen said. “He told me, ‘You’re going to be playing over a lot of these guys, so stay humble.’ That’s something that’s stuck with me and I think he instilled that in me.”
That mentality was tested when Hansen sat out the summer with a forearm strain, and had that to deal with amidst the draft talk.
“When you get back into it, your timing is off, so I was wild and didn’t have that great of command,” Hansen said. “When you throw as hard as I do, you can’t just throw the ball over the middle of the plate, you have to hit spots and you have to be able to throw your off-speed pitches for strikes, otherwise you’ll get hit around.”
Madden spoke on guys like Gausman and Gonzales – out of Grandview and Rocky Mountain, respectively – proving Colorado baseball’s merit.
“When I was 12, 13, and 14, I started paying attention to stuff like that,” Madden said. “Definitely inspirational in the way that there are other guys out there who have done it, I can definitely do it – just have to work hard.”
Hansen certainly puts in the work.
“As a teammate, he’s great. Super competitive, definitely just wants to win,” Madden said. “You can’t complain about anything that he does, he’s a very hard worker.”
In addition to motivating the next top Colorado prep player to be just that, Hansen has learned a little something from himself as well.
“I think more so, I’ve grown up as a person coming to college. I think that’s the biggest thing that’ll help me more than anything at the next level,” Hansen said. “When you get to college, there’s two ways you can go. You can go down a bad path and lose yourself and go down that road, or you can establish yourself as a person. Be your own motivator.”
Arria Minor, a freshman at Denver East, opened her prep track and field career for the Angels in absolute style this weekend — three meet records, two in individual events (100- and 200-meter dashes), and some of the nation’s best times at the prestigious Mullen Invitational on Saturday.
Minor’s performance at Mullen highlighted an astonishing weekend, which included a pair of wins in the 100 (11.78) and 400 (55.20) at the Thomas Jefferson Twilight meet on Friday, as well.
“Arria had a really incredible weekend,” Denver East coach Steve Kiper said. “It was her first weekend to get out and run with the team. We wanted to get out and get some baseline times. We did a lot of hard training over the last couple of weeks.”
At the Mullen Invite, traditionally one of Colorado’s most elite track and field events, Minor pulled away from competitive fields in both the 100 (11.64) and the 200 (23.65), and she sits at No. 1 in Colorado for all classifications in both. On top of that, after just one weekend of racing, she boasts top three freshman times nationally in the 100, 200 and 400.
Denver East freshman Arria Minor. (Brock Laue/CHSAANow.com)
“Arria is a super competitor,” Kiper added. “She’ll compete with boys. She’ll compete with anybody who will line up with her. That’s the kind of person and athlete she is, but it’s in a fun way. She has a really good spirit toward her friends and teammates and she’s very motivated.”
Minor also ran a leg on Denver East’s record-setting 400-meter relay that cruised to a 47.76.
“I am really happy. I didn’t think I could do it, but I just listened to my coaches,” Minor said of the times she ran Saturday.
Nonetheless, the freshman is keeping things in perspective as well.
“I know all the time I have to stay humble,” she said. “I want to make sure I always keep my team first.”
While there were a lot of other top-flight performances at Mullen, Andrea Willis has a way of standing out. The senior pole vaulter from The Classical Academy broke the all-classification record for the third time this spring while clearing 13-8. She even attempted 14-0, fell just short, but ended up settling nicely into second in the nation in the event. Her sister Erika (11-6), a sophomore, was the runner-up at Mullen.
Chantae Steele, a teammate of Willis’, won the 800 in 2:14.72 and ranks as the No. 1 freshman in America. A first-year tandem of Anna Shults (11:16) and Quinn McConnell (11:18) from Peak to Peak swept the top two places of the 3,200. Zoe Gilbertson, a junior for Mountain Range, won the 100 hurdles (13.84) and 300 hurdles (43.26), while also placing third in the 100-meter dash (12.27).
Boys winners on the day included Noah Mcghee of Littleton in the 100 (10.68), Marcus Quere of Loveland in the 800 (1:56.61), Gift Chinda of Thompson Valley in the triple jump (44-05.5), Jonathan Penrose of Broomfield in the 300 hurdles (38.74) and Adam Dawson of Lutheran in the discus throw (171-03.5).
LYONS — A snow-filled and blustery March has done its best to delay the track and field season in Colorado.
While a number of meets have been canceled or postponed, the Longmont Invitational, always one of the most stacked invites of the season, was merely pushed from Saturday to Monday and moved from Longmont to Lyons.
With the meet on — in the snow-capped foothills at a venue with magnificent views — many of the state’s top individuals and teams competed like it. In fact, there were two all-classification Colorado records broken.
Air Academy senior Katie Rainsberger, the University of Oregon recruit with an effortless stride, was competing in her first outdoor meet of the season. Just two weeks ago, she shattered the all-time Colorado record in the mile while winning the New Balance Nationals Indoor meet in 4:36.61, the third-fastest time ever by an American high school girl.
Air Academy’s Katie Rainsberger. (Brock Laue/CHSAANow.com)
On Monday, the records kept on coming as Rainsberger set a new standard in the 1,600-meter run as her 4:44.31 took down Cherry Creek senior Jordyn Colter’s all-classification best, which was set at state last season (4:46.22). Then, Rainsberger shattered the meet record in the 800 with a time of 2:11.80, winning by five seconds over Chantae Steele (2:16.84), a freshman from The Classical Academy.
Rainsberger, the Nike Cross Country National Champion in the fall, has traveled around the country for competitions during her career for the Kadets, but said it was special running in front of a Colorado crowd again.
“I think this one is definitely special in that it was in my home state,” she said. “Every lap people were cheering and the announcer was pushing me on. Having all these people in Colorado supporting me made it all that more special.”
Rainsberger, who also ran a leg on the winning 4×400 relay (4:06.07, top time in 4A), said she trained through this meet with a hard workout just a couple of days ago. Her time in the 1,600 seemed to catch even her a bit off-guard this early in the season.
“I was actually running it more as a workout,” she said. “I am at the point in my season where I’m fit, but I’m not race sharp. I wanted to come out here today and get some state qualifiers. I trained through this meet. It’s really exciting to see where I’m at, but I think there’s more.”
As for the other Colorado record broken on Monday, Andrea Willis, a senior for The Classical Academy and a two-time defending state champion in the pole vault (4A in 2015, 3A in 2014), inched past a 2008 record set by Elizabeth Stover of Longmont (13-4.0) by going 13-4.25. Willis owns another record of her own as her 13-7.25 at the Air Force Indoor Open on February 6 was the best-ever indoors by a Colorado girl.
The Classical Academy’s Andrea Willis. (Courtesy of the Willis family)
“It means a lot,” Willis, a University of Kansas recruit, said excitedly. “When I started vaulting my sophomore year, my coach said I could someday maybe break the state record. I didn’t think that was possible, but last year I started jumping a little higher. I wasn’t 100 percent last year. I had some back issues. I wanted to jump it last year.
“I landed on the mat and I was like, ‘Wow, I’m now the state record holder.’ It’s one of the best feelings ever.”
On a day with almost no wind and temperatures in the 50s, a number of other Longmont Invite records were broken.
Alex Miller of The Classical Academy (110 hurdles, 14.63), Caleb Ojennes of Palmer Ridge (200, 21.63), Paul Roberts of Lyons (3,200, 9:18) and Gift Chinda of Thompson Valley (triple jump, 46-7.25) all set new standards for a meet that was the state’s most competitive event thus far this spring.
The Classical Academy girls also broke the meet record in the 4×200 relay with a time of 1:43.51.
As for team results, the Loveland girls racked up 108 points in winning a 23-team meet. They won six girls events on the day (200, 300 hurdles, triple jump, long jump, 4×800 relay, 800 sprint medley relay).
The Classical Academy was the girls team runner-up with 67, and the Titans won the boys team crown with 103.5 points. Mountain View was second with 71.
The 2015-16 all-state girls basketball players of the year. (Photos: Matt Mathewes/MVPSportsPics.com; Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com; Matt Daniels/MattDanPhoto.com; Jeff Tucker/jefferywtucker.zenfolio.com)
The 2015-16 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 then a week-long vote of coaches.
A specific player of the year vote was held in each class, as was a vote for coach of the year.
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Class 5A
Grandview’s Michaela Onyenwere is the 5A girls basketball player of the year. (Jack Eberhard/JacksActionShots.com)
COLORADO SPRINGS — Cal Zeb Roberson knew exactly what Rampart needed and when to deliver it.
He scored 12 of his game-high 21 points as the Rams topped Loveland 55-41 to advance to the second round of the Class 5A state tournament.
The Rams (17-7 overall) will play Cherry Creek Saturday with a chance to move on to the Sweet 16.
“I just came out and they left me open,” Roberson said. “It’s nothing I did, my teammates were the ones who got me open for those.”
He started the game by knocking down a couple of early 3-pointers to give Rampart a fast lead. The Indians struggled to put up points early, only registering three field goals through the first quarter.
But for the Indians (5-19), it was all about what shots weren’t falling. With a chance to keep the game tight, Loveland struggled at the free throw line, hitting only three of 11 attempts from the charity stripe, which put them in a 30-20 hole at the half.
“It was pretty much a 10-point ballgame the entire way,” Loveland coach Adam Anderson said. “It definitely affected us. I feel like if we made half of those, and we cut it to five, we have a chance.”
In the second half, just when it seemed like the Indians were gaining momentum, Roberson would get the Rampart crowd back into it with a breakaway dunk. But as the crowd rose to its feet, Roberson fell onto his backside, causing a very brief moment of silence.
“I was just going to fast and didn’t want to hang on the rim and get a technical,” he said. “It happens, but I guess as long as I put it in the hoop, I guess that’s okay.”
That slam increased the lead to 40-24 and gave the Rams total control for the rest of the way. The Indians were able to pull back to within 10, but another Roberson fast break dunk pushed the lead to 46-34 all but wrapping the game up.
For the Rams, it was a good win to get into the feel of the state tournament and they feel as though it will help them in the next round of the tournament.
“For the team that we have this year, this is perfect for us,” Rampart coach J’on St. Clair said. “We get a chance to play and we get the playoff jitters out. Last year our team earned a really good seed and that’s where I feel where we needed to be, but this is a different team.”
The Rams will get back to work on Thursday and have two days of practice before heading up to Cherry Creek for their next game.
And the players like that they’re now in the groove. To them, it’s a lot better than a full week of just going through the motions.
“Tonight wasn’t the best game,” Roberson said. “But we’re in the playoffs now and a win is a win. We have a little more experience now (this year) than they do.”
The 2015 football players of the year. From left: Dylan Dixon of Eads; Keegan Wentz of Buena Vista; JoJo Domann of Pine Creek; Dylan McCaffrey of Valor Christian; Daniel Martin of Pueblo East; Kelton McCoy of Bayfield; Trey Walter of Sedgwick County. (Photos: Jack Eberhard/JacksActoinShots.com; Bill Cronin; Matt Daniels/MattDanPhoto.com; Kai Casey/CHSAANow.com; Jeff Tucker; and Sedgwick County HS)
The 2015 all-state football teams are presented by CHSAANow.com, ColoradoPreps.com and MaxPreps.
These teams were created following a lengthy process which included nominations from leagues and then a vote of coaches.
