Denver East made the biggest jump in this week’s hockey rankings, going from No. 10 to No. 7.
The rankings, voted upon by coaches and select media members, are the official polls of the Association. During the regular season, the poll will release each Monday.
Oran Huff was one of 56 wrestlers that stood at the very top of the state wrestling podium. With eight losses to his name, Huff entered the Class 2A 126-pound bracket looking to do something special for himself and for his teammates at Lyons.
Two pins and two decisions later, he claimed gold at Pepsi Center. He was just a sophomore, but he carried his way through the state bracket like a seasoned veteran. He had come so close the year before, but fell in the quarterfinals on his way to a fourth-place finish.
This year, he’s removing all doubt that anyone can beat him. Mainly because no one has beaten him.
Huff is one of 10 wrestlers who have wrestled 20 matches this season and walked away victorious in each and every one of them. He’s gotten better and better each season and taking an undefeated record into the state tournament is a good way to be better this season. It’s also a way that it’s easy to feel pressure.
Luckily for Huff, he’s not about the end of the road as much as he is taking in the moment. And in the individual moment, pressure isn’t something that gets to him.
“I don’t feel like I’m dealing with a lot of it,” he said. “I’d like to to go undefeated, but losses happen and I’m going to lose eventually be it whenever it happens. Hopefully it doesn’t happen within the season.”
Of his 30 victories this year, only seven of them have not been by fall. He’s been truly dominant as the 2019-20 season has played out.
For the most part, so has Colorado Springs Christian’s Jake Hamilton. The Lions’ senior started the season wrestling in the 160-pound division, but has since dropped to 152 which is where he plans to make his run at state.
“We’ve been to a couple of easy tournaments where the competition wasn’t too hard there,” Hamilton said. “I’ve had a couple of close matches where I was pretty lucky to win. I just walk out on the mat with so much confidence where I know that not a single person can finish a shot on me.”
That’s half the battle right there is the mentality.
Each time these undefeated wrestlers get their hand raised they start looking toward their next opponents and a big reason why they keep winning is their belief that they can do so.
That’s been the case for Doherty’s Tyson Beauperthuy who has more wins than anyone in the state at 31. That’s the case Windsor’s Dominick Serrano who at 29-0 will go for his fourth state championship in just a few weeks.
Even more impressive is that Serrano has yet to lose a high school match in his career.
Serrano’s season doesn’t come as a surprise as he has already finished three undefeated seasons, but that isn’t the case for the other competitors. Even though Huff has continued to get better in his career, not having a loss to his name with state just around the corner is a bit of a surprise, even to him.
“I’ve had some really close matches that could’ve gone either way,” Huff said. “I haven’t expected to have this kind of season, but I’m really happy about it.”
Wrestlers head to regionals on Feb. 14 to try and qualify for the 2020 state wrestling tournament at Pepsi Center.
With the level of competition rising from here on out, staying undefeated will be an impressive achievement for those wrestlers without a loss to their name.
Chaparral made a jump in this week’s hockey rankings, to No. 2.
The rankings, voted upon by coaches and select media members, are the official polls of the Association. During the regular season, the poll will release each Monday.
COLORADO SPRINGS — Doherty hockey coach Will English exited the locker room with a look of extreme relief. His Spartans left the Mark “Pa” Sertich Ice Center with a zero still registered in the loss column, but after just two periods of play, he would’ve thought he had a better chance of winning the lottery.
Doherty overcame a three-goal deficit and battled back to escape Sertich with a 3-3 tie against Pine Creek thanks in big part to Richie Flores and Nick Hernandez scoring two goals inside of the final two and a half minutes.
The result says tie, but English will be quick to acknowledge that in this case, a tie was a win for his team.
“It really was,” English said. “I talked to the team and it brings us back to humble footing. You need a little bit of adversity, guys have to fight through this.”
Doherty got on the attack early, gaining an early 4-1 edge in shots on goal. But it was just Pine Creek’s second shot – on its first power play of the game – that put them on the board.
Austin Gipson fired the puck from the right side and it got just over goalie Ashton Goble’s left shoulder. With neither team surrendering a lot of goals through the course of the season, the early was key in Pine Creek settling in and taking control of the game.
The tenth-ranked Spartans (10-0-1 overall) hoped to return the favor on their first power play, but Austin Sawyer was able to attack the Doherty goal and the puck was misplayed by Goble. Sawyer converted on the wide-open look for his 13th goal of the year, making it a 2-0 game with just under three minutes left in the second period.
(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
“We felt pretty good after the second goal and then we got the third one where we were feeling really good coming in (to the locker room),” Sawyer said. “In the third we just got complacent and we didn’t go hard the entire time.”
In the latter half of the second period, the Spartans got their second power play opportunity. An attempt by the Eagles (8-0-2) to clear gave Doherty a rare friendly bounce and a four-on-one look at the net.
The shot sailed wide, essentially playing into Doherty’s fortunes up to that point of the night.
Right as the power play ended, Luke Doyle found Roderick Glassford streaking down the ice for Pine Creek. Glassford pulled Goble just far enough away from the net before flicking the puck to Alex Bergquist who made it a 3-0 game and giving fans on both sides of the Sertich the feeling that Pine Creek was heading home with the win.
“We knew the next goal would be a big goal,” Pine Creek coach Ed Saxer said. “We talked about that next goal because obviously 3-1 or 4-0 is a huge difference.”
How right he was.
Stratton Miller had been a wall the entire night and ended the game with 23 saves, but the Spartans finally got one by him on their fourth power play opportunity of the game.
A rush of the net resulted in Garrett Bogan scoring with an assist from Chase Chapman and pulling the Spartans to within two.
Once that first goal got in, the Spartans settled into their style of play, just maybe a little later than they would have liked.
“I think the excitement set at that time,” English said. “You get that momentum shift at that point, we knew we had get the next one. We just wanted them to go sooner than what had happened.”
Eventually, though, it happened. With two minutes, 16 seconds left on the clock, Flores pulled the Spartans to within a goal. Seventy-four seconds later, Hernandez got one by Miller to tie the game.
“I was really hyped,” Hernandez said. “I was playing really good though in that period because I knew we were going to be able to come back.”
Neither team scored in the five-minute overtime and both came off the ice with very different feelings. The Eagles felt like they had let a big-time win slip away. The Spartans felt fortunate that they left the building still without a loss to their name.
“The two teams battled out there,” Saxer said. “They didn’t give up, we didn’t give up. And then when it came down to the end, in the last seven minutes they fought a little more than we did.”
Doherty has joined this week’s hockey rankings at No. 10.
The rankings, voted upon by coaches and select media members, are the official polls of the Association. During the regular season, the poll will release each Monday.
Paul and Beth Reichart find their place behind the Doherty boys basketball bench about the time that warmups for the varsity game get going.
They settle in, they smile and they greet the fellow fans and parents who make sure to say hello. A local real estate broker, the Doherty basketball games are events that Paul looks forward to. Considering his two sons are announced as starters for the Spartans, the anticipation hardly comes as a surprise.
“I get worked up over two things,” he says as game time approaches. “I don’t like it when my kids get clobbered and no foul is called and I hate it when they’re playing great defense and a foul gets called on them.”
He says it like most parents would make the same point 10 times over in a regular high school basketball game.
But Paul isn’t like the rest of the parents. He has come to really appreciate watching his boys play basketball. About a year ago, he wasn’t sure one of them was going to be alive let alone getting high-volume varsity minutes.
His older son, Schafer, is a junior for Doherty and having a good season. Through nine games, he’s averaging 14.6 points per game which leads the team.
“We run everything through him,” Doherty coach Eric Steinert said.
It’s a wonder that Reichart is even on the floor. On Jan. 23 a series of events kicked off that put his basketball future — and overall life — in extreme jeopardy. Through his battle back, he brought a major sense of perspective back to the Spartans and the Colorado Springs community as a whole.
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(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
Toxic shock syndrome.
The phrase alone sounds like a made up condition that someone would hear about from watching reruns of House M.D.
A quick Google search affirms that the condition is real and it’s what Schafer had to battle. He had played in a rivalry game against Palmer on Jan. 18 last year. He scored eight points and was 2-for-17 on shot attempts. It wasn’t his best game but that was in part to his feeling under the weather.
A combination of Influenza A and strep throat had attacked his body. In the coming days his heart, kidneys and lungs become punching bags for the bacteria. Something was very wrong and a trip to the hospital revealed that some tough decisions had to be made.
Schafer was choppered to Children’s Hospital in Aurora. The doctors told Paul and Beth that in order for Schafer to live, they had to put him on ECMO. That decision, however, was going to come with its own risks. He could be susceptible to a stroke and he was in danger of losing extremities.
The call for the Reicharts was easy.
“We would’ve taken him in any condition,” Paul said.
ECMO it was, but at such an early stage there was no guarantee that it was going to save Schafer’s life.
“I drove up to Denver to see him the day he got sick, I mean I drove for an hour and a half thinking I have no idea what’s about to happen,” Steinert said. “That’s a real feeling that you don’t experience very often. We may lose a kid that’s such an integral part of who we are and a great kid.”
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Paul Reichart watches his son Schafer during a Jan. 8 game against ThunderRidge. (Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
Schafer was in the hospital for 45 days. Paul and Beth were constantly at his side but the family dynamic had to remain intact. Drew, a freshman at Colorado Springs Christian School at the time, was in the middle of his own basketball season.
With his parents in Aurora at Schafer’s side, it was Paul’s brother and sister-in-law that held the household structure together.
At this time, support from across the city was pouring into to help the Reichart family. Three days after Schafer’s hospitalization, Rampart and Doherty met in a Class 5A Colorado Springs Metro League game. The day served multiple purposes as Rampart put on a fundraising effort for Schafer.
Several players on the Rams roster know Schafer and were both shaken by the news of his illness and eager to do their part to help.
On Friday, the Rams and Spartans will meet for the first of two CSML showdowns this season. It was mark the first time they’ve played each other since Schafer’s fundraiser and it will also serve as the official re-opening of Doherty’s refurbished gym. During the Spartans’ 49-37 win over ThunderRidge earlier this week, the Reicharts were greeted by a couple of members of Rampart’s team.
They kept up to date with Schafer’s progress each and every day as did countless people throughout the area.
“About 1,000 people visited him in the hospital in the 45 days he was there,” Paul said.
Back home, Drew had to maintain his own life, even with the weight of his hospitalized brother hanging over him.
A basketball family at heart, the younger Reichart dove into the tasks in front of him in an effort to keep his mind on the possible outcomes.
“I used basketball and school to take my mind off him,” Drew said. “It’s hard and it’s something I didn’t really want to acknowledge and so I was able to use basketball and school as kind of a distraction.”
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(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
Schafer started battling enough that he had gotten past the danger of dying. As far as basketball goes, he was far from out of the woods. The risks that came with the ECMO treatment started presenting themselves.
“His fingers were all black,” Paul said.
Slowly, his circulation started returning and a complete recovery was suddenly in the cards. In fact, the doctors started giving timelines that his organs would start getting back to their normal functions. But those timelines were off and it became obvious that Schafer was a fighter.
“They said it’d be like five weeks on ECMO and it was like three days,” Schafer said. “They said it’d be nine months for my kidneys and it was like two months.”
That became the case with his heart as well. His lungs also recovered, but at this point Paul guesses they’re at about 80 percent capacity.
“See that? He’s getting tired,” Paul says pointing to Schafer on the floor.
ThunderRidge knows that Schafer can shoot so their man-to-man defense is designed to keep the ball out of his hands. He’s working harder than he’s used to get open and get off a quality shot.
He’s held scoreless for the first half of the first quarter against the Grizzlies and finally scores on a reverse layup with 4:02 left.
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(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
His level of play didn’t just return over night. It was something he had to get back to and it started with the very basics.
“I had to learn how to walk again,” Schafer said. “I couldn’t eat anything and I couldn’t drink for like two weeks. I was getting everything through a feeding tube.”
As summer basketball approached, his doctors gave him the okay to play, but the feeding tube was still in.
That meant there had to be some care taken when he was on the floor, a condition that Steinert was happy to account for considering the nightmare Schafer had already been through.
“The doctor said ‘I will allow you to play but don’t take a charge, don’t get in traffic, just go out there and run,’” Steinert said. “And he had a literal feeding tube in.”
The entire scenario sounded like something that could give a parent fits. A child who had been near death just five months early getting back on the floor a potentially getting knocked around by opposing players.
Paul waves at the idea like he’s swatting a fly out of the air.
“After recovering from he went through, basketball was easy,” he said.
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(Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
Normalcy has returned to the Reichart family. Drew – now at Doherty and getting announced in the Spartans’ starting lineup with Schafer – is relishing the opportunity to share the floor with his brother.
“It’s been awesome,” Drew said. “Our chemistry’s great and that helps the team. It’s also a good relationship builder too.”
The brothers now help each other out when watching film and they get to develop their abilities and mindsets together.
Those benefits are seen when they’re on the floor.
It’s been a rough start to the season, but the Spartans are on a three-game winning streak and feel like they’ll contend in the CSML.
Schafer is a big part of that of that confidence. Steinert has no problem acknowledging just how much he means to the team both on the floor and as an emotional lift.
“He’s everything you want your kid to be as a parent, he’s everything you want your student to be as a teacher,” Steinert said. “He’s everything you want your players to be. If you want me to show you a Doherty Spartan I’m going to pick Schafer.”
The fact that Steinert can say that is every bit as remarkable as it is for Paul and Beth to be able to stroll into the Doherty gym on a Wednesday night and watch both of their sons compete.
At the end of January last year, it would’ve been considered a miracle.
With Schafer as proof, every once in a while it turns out that miracles do happen.
