Air Academy softball got its season started off on a high note.
The Kadets, led by a pair of juniors, picked up a big 2-0 upset win over No. 4 Pueblo South on Thursday.
Brina Baysinger was dominant in the circle, allowing just one hit and one walk while striking out 15 over seven innings. It was her third career shutout, and the 15 strikeouts were a career high.
With the game scoreless in the top of the sixth inning, Air Academy’s Abby Litchfield hit a two-run home run. She was 2-for-3, accounting for two of the Kadets’ three hits in the game. It was Litchfield’s second career home run.
Pueblo South pitcher Emily Abraham also had an excellent game, matching Baysinger with 15 strikeouts over seven innings.
Air Academy reached the 4A regionals last season, while Pueblo South advanced to the state tournament.
The preseason girls softball rankings were released on Monday morning, and Columbine (5A), Holy Family (4A) and University (3A) lead the polls in their respective classifications.
The polls, voted upon by head coaches around the state, will serve as part of the seeding criteria in softball this season. Polls are released each Monday during the regular season.
Arapahoe 37, Cherokee Trail 29, Grand Junction Central 24, Lakewood 21, Arvada West 17, Brighton 17, Hinkley 10, Valor Christian 10, Castle View 9, Loveland 9, Eaglecrest 8, Fountain-Fort Carson 8, Douglas County 7, Prairie View 7, Rampart 7, Vista Ridge 7, Grandview 5, Pomona 5, Mountain Range 4, Mountain Vista 3, Rangeview 3, Regis Jesuit 2, Cherry Creek 1, ThunderRidge 1.
Class 4A
RK
TEAM
W-L
PTS
1
Holy Family (5)
0-0-0
98
2
Erie (4)
0-0-0
87
3
Silver Creek (1)
0-0-0
85
4
Pueblo South (2)
0-0-0
70
5
Wheat Ridge
0-0-0
48
6
Mead
0-0-0
33
7
Mountain View
0-0-0
29
8
Golden
0-0-0
24
9
Pueblo County
0-0-0
23
10
Mullen
0-0-0
16
Others receiving votes:
Air Academy 12, Elizabeth 12, Pueblo West 11, Pueblo Central 10, Riverdale Ridge 10, Conifer 9, Ponderosa 9, Pueblo East 9, Evergreen 8, Pueblo Centennial 8, Mesa Ridge 7, Roosevelt 7, Windsor 7, Bear Creek 6, Coronado 6, D’Evelyn 5, Niwot 3, Rifle 3, Montrose 2, Northridge 2, Frederick 1.
Class 3A
RK
TEAM
W-L
PTS
1
University (8)
0-0-0
80
2
Eaton
0-0-0
68
3
Strasburg (1)
0-0-0
65
4
Brush
0-0-0
57
5
Limon
0-0-0
40
6
Sterling
0-0-0
39
7
Rocky Ford
0-0-0
33
8
Basalt
0-0-0
27
9
The Academy
0-0-0
24
10
La Junta
0-0-0
16
Others receiving votes:
Lamar 14, Lyons 9, Resurrection Christian 7, Fort Lupton 6, Lutheran 5, Montezuma-Cortez 2, Valley 2, Peak to Peak 1.
Shannan Lane is back on the bench at Pueblo South High School, only this time she’ll be guiding the boys.
South athletic director Jarrett Sweckard confirmed to CHSAANow.com Wednesday afternoon that he hired Lane as the Colts’ boys basketball coach one year after she stepped down from the same position with the girls program.
When Lane initially resigned following the Colts’ loss to Mullen in the 2019 Class 4A state championship game, she still had interest in coaching the boys program should the opportunity arise.
“Life takes its twist and turns,” Lane said. “Sometimes you ask why or how did I get here. I don’t how I got here in the boys realm, but God gave me two boys, He did not give me two girls. I think if I had two daughters, I would still be coaching the girls.”
Gabriel Zeigler had been the boys coach for the previous two seasons. He took over for DJ Johnson who stepped away after the 2017-18 campaign where he took the South boys to the 4A FInal 4.
Lane’s coaching background gave Sweckard little reason to elsewhere to fill the position. He witnessed her conduct on a day-to-day basis when she guided the girls team to three consecutive 4A title games from 2017-19.
She amassed a 241-52 overall record with the Colts girls, which included a state championship in 2013, the fifth in program history. She led the Colts to five outright league championships while winning a share of the league title on four other occasions.
“Everyone in the state knows that she’s a very qualified basketball coach,” Sweckard said. “She does a great job preparing teams to go into games and take those teams to state-level play whether it be the Final 4 or the state championship game.”
The South boys have struggled in the last two seasons but won the South-Central title in 2018 and advanced to the 4A Final 4 where they lost to eventual state champion Longmont. Among the several appealing challenges for Lane is getting them back to that level of play.
“The boys have always been a high level,” she said. “They had a lot of great years and they’ve always been strong. You go through your classes and that 2017-18 class, their top six were all seniors. Gabe took over a program a year after it went to the Final 4 and lost all its starters. He did a great job, hats off to him. He was real young last year too and they’re going to be young next year.”
According to Austin White of the Pueblo Chieftain, Lane will be the first female to lead a boys basketball program in Pueblo history.
Lane praised Sweckard and South for having the courage to make a bold, unorthodox move.
“They’re doing something special,” Lane said.
But that was not the motivation behind Sweckard’s decision. He simply identified her as the best candidate for the job and is excited to see her back on the bench coaching basketball.
“When we were looking for qualified coaches, her name came up right away,” Sweckard said. “I knew in the state there weren’t many (female coaches of boys teams) but I think it’s going to be an awesome thing for her. It’s a new chapter in her life and she’s taking over a different program and she’s going to do a great job.”
Pueblo South coach Ryan Goddard, Fountain-Fort Carson coach Jake Novotny and FFC offensive coordinator Jeremy Mercer text each other and chat football often. Sometimes maybe a little too often, but that turned out to be a good thing about a week ago.
Confined indoors and away from their players due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the three friends started thinking about how to use this time to get better as coaches. And also to help coaches throughout the state get better with them.
With technology on their side, they worked quickly to create the Box State Blitz Online Coaches Clinic which is set to launch on Monday.
“We consistently talk football,” Goddard said. “We wanted to continue to talk football and I had seen (camps) happening in a few other places. This was the opportunity to get it going in Colorado and we thought we had the opportunity to do and it took off from there.”
The idea actually stemmed from a roundtable discussion not too long ago. CHSAA assistant commissioner Adam Bright hosted a collection of football coaches from around the state to assess the state of football in Colorado and continue to move it in a positive direction.
“One of the things we talked about was that we needed more communication between our coaches with clinics and different things,” Bright said. “Ryan and those guys had the great idea that since we’re all sitting at home why don’t we accomplish one of those goals while we have the downtime.”
This camp aims to do more than just check one box. Goddard was encouraged by the response he got when he announced the launch of the clinic over the weekend.
“The response was better than what we were originally hoping for,” he said.
After an initial trial clinic with Goddard, Novotny and Mercer all conferencing each other in, they moved quickly to get other coaches involved both in terms of speak and attending.
“We feel it’s one way for us to give back to the state for what football has given to us,” Novotny said.
He also feels like it can kickstart options to ensure that coaches aren’t falling behind when it comes to preparation for the fall season.
“It’s even spurred ideas for my own staff,” Novotny added. “We’re talking about doing online staff meetings and doing some virtual stuff. We’ve met with kids online in terms of just checking in on them. And some kids have reached out to coaches about watching film and that kind of stuff. What it’s done more than anything is make us realize there are so many possibilities out there for us as a staff moving forward that we can save time as coaches and even for our players.”
(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
The idea alone was enough to spark interest from coaches all over the state. While social distancing has become a national necessity, these coaches are working to balance family lives while making sure kids of their own are getting educated from home. And online clinic has become something that they can utilize while doing both those things and making sure they’re keeping themselves healthy while adhering to the national call to stay home in order to stay healthy.
“The world has really changed the last few decades with the amount of information you can access online,” Arapahoe coach Rod Sherman said. “An online clinic such as this is a great way to learn and learning might look different when I started my coaching career when it was all about sitting in the audience at a coaches clinic. Now you can do so much coaching development just by going online.”
The time between the idea being floated out in a group text chain to the launch of a potentially vital tool was right around a week. Just like they tell the athletes they coach, Goddard, Novotny and Mercer didn’t wait around for their idea to just materialize. They jumped into action and saw their hard work generate their desired result.
“I think what Ryan and Adam are doing is trying to bring a collaborative mentality to Colorado so that football coaches can all grow together,” Sherman added. “It will be good for all the kids and let’s put the competitiveness of the fall aside and do what’s good for kids.”
Their genuine hope is that coaches from all over the state at every classification can benefit in the long run.
“It shows that we have coaches who want to keep getting better but also want to help other coaches,” Bright said. “They want to see the game grow. I’m happy the guys putting this together are some of the ones we’ve partnered with at the CHSAA level to talk about where we want to get to and these guys are showing what kind of leaders they are.”
This week’s clinic speakers include Jason Mohns (Saguaro High School, AZ), Brian Nelson (Mary Persons High School, GA), Jeff Rayburn (Lone Star High School, TX) and Woody Blevins (Assumption College, MA).
Goddard is hoping that the online clinic can consistently feature speakers and also run on a regular basis for the foreseeable future.
Coaches who are interested in online access to the Box State Blitz Clinic can email Ryan Goddard at ryan.goddard@pueblocityschools.us.
The 2019 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 head coaches across the state.
Players were placed onto the first-team, second-team and honorable mention based upon the number of votes they received. In 5A-1A, spots were reserved for linemen and one kicker/punter, while 8-man reserved spots for linemen.
CHSAA does not determine who makes or doesn’t make the team; they are created from the results of the coaches’ vote.
PUEBLO — Following a brief celebration of their third consecutive Class 3A state football title, Palmer Ridge High School coaches and players gave their thanks to the numerous members of their team and community.
Those minute details paved the way for the Bears all season and did so again at the Neta and Eddie DeRose ThunderBowl on Saturday in their 35-13 win over Pueblo South.
It was the second time the Bears defeated Pueblo South in Pueblo this season. They won 24-19 on Sept 27, which was also at the ThunderBowl.
Bears coach Tom Pulford stressed how difficult it is to defeat a team twice in one season, let alone two times on their turf.
“Hats off to South, they did a great job in all three phases of the game,” Pulford said. “They did a good job on defense and limited what we could do in the run game. We made some adjustments with our personnel but they still were stout against the run.”
Not off the bat, however.
After the Bears (12-2) forced a three-and-out on the Colts’ first drive, Palmer Ridge took over at the 50 and needed four plays to reach pay dirt.
Raef Ruel did the dirty work with a 37-yard run on first and 10 down the sideline to give the Bears a lead they did not relinquish. Zach Pribyl’s kick made it 7-0 with 8:03 left in the first.
South (12-2) forced a three-and-out in the second quarter and, after a late hit put the Colts at Palmer Ridge’s 32, the Colts got on the board.
South’s work horse George Longoria cut to his right and went up the gut untouched for a 23-yard touchdown run. Jackson Tondera’s kick made it 7-7 with 8:43 left in the half.
From that point, though, the Bears cleaned house.
Palmer Ridge outscored South 28-6 the remainder of the contest and the game’s most valuable player, Luke McAllister finished 8-for-17 with 272 yards and four touchdowns.
“We practiced really hard for this week and we knew they were going to be hungry,” McAllister said. “Two in a row against a team is hard to do. I can’t be more proud of us and how we practiced.”
McAllister began to cook and hooked up with his receivers for scores on back-to-back drives.
McAllister connected with Kaden Dudley on an 87-yard pass to make it 14-7 after the field goal.
McAllister, a Colorado State University commit, followed that with a 20-yard strike to Anthony Roberson and, after the kick, the Bears led 21-7.
Palmer Ridge extended its lead to 28-7 after Dudley broke free for an 81-yard reception, which was McAllister’s third TD toss of the afternoon. Dudley’s two TD grabs went for 168 yards.
“He saved me on that,” McAllister said of his first TD toss to Dudley. “At that point I knew what I wanted, I saw him open and I took a shot downfield. I got hit on it and he made a great play and took off. I couldn’t be more proud of him.”
South marched 80 yards in nine plays and quarterback Logan Petit found the end zone on a 3-yard scamper to cut the Bears’ lead to 28-13 with 8:23 left in the third.
But the might of Palmer Ridge proved too much.
McAllister escaped the defense and found Marcellus Reed for a completion and he broke free from South’s defense to take it 53 yards for the score. The ensuing kick made it 35-13 with 5:50 left in the third.
The Bears came up with two interceptions in the second half with Reed snagging one along with his touchdown.
“We got the call from coach and I trusted our guys,” Reed said. “I see the quarterback launch the ball and I had to go get that for my brothers because I know since day one they’ve been doing it for me.”
That pick on 3rd-and-5 with 3:54 left in the third, followed by Roberson’s interception with 3:18 on the clock, thwarted South’s momentum and put a kibosh on the Colts comeback attempt.
The Bears continue to be a thorn in the side of Pueblo.
Last season, Palmer Ridge earned its second consecutive title by defeating Pueblo East 47-38.
In addition to their win this season, the Bears ended South’s playoff run last year in the first round with a 41-7 victory.
Pulford said the team overcame a lot to make it to this point. To grab a third title in as many years was a fitting end to the Bears’ season.
“This was super important for everyone to play so well,” Pulford said. “This was the last opportunity for the seniors to be out on the field together and the challenge was to rise up against whatever adversity we saw. I think our kids rose above that challenge. There’s always things you wish you could do better but the end result and process we took to get there is something I’m thankful for.”
