Estes Park has turned to Tom Creech to take over its football program, announcing his hire on Tuesday.
Creech has 17 years of coaching experience, most recently as an assistant at Platte Valley. He has also been an assistant at Loveland.
“I am excited and proud to be a Bobcat and want to take this team to the next level,” Creech said via email on Tuesday. “I hope to get the youth, middle school, student body and community excited and deliver an awesome Friday night experience to go along with the bugling elk his fall! I have a great staff in place and we are ready to get to work this spring and summer.”
Creech takes over for Brian Lund, who was 13-21 in four seasons. Lund took over a program that was 0-10 in 2011, and turned it around to 6-3 in 2012.
Estes Park went 2-7 last season while playing in Class 1A.
The Bobcats will return a number of contributors in 2016, notably quarterback Jordan Duemig, but did graduate a lot on the defensive side of the ball.
Follow all of the offseason coaching movement in our tracker.
DENVER — Meeker’s TJ Shelton opened his quest for a fourth title with a pin of Wiggins’ Dillon Donaghy in 49 seconds in the first round of Thursday’s Class 2A state wrestling tournament.
Shelton, who wrestles at 170 pounds, will face Edgar Pedigo of Custer County in Friday’s quarterfinals. Pedigo pinned Rhett Uhland of Eads in 4:22.
Shelton won 2A’s 170-point title as a freshman, 160 pounds as a sophomore, and 170 again as a junior last season.
Last season, Paonia’s Jesse Reed won a fourth championship, and Broomfield’s Phil Downing did the same in 2014. Only once before has the state has had a four-time champion in three-consecutive tournaments. The came in 2003-05, when a total of five wrestlers accomplished the feat.
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Willits makes triumphant return to state
Grant Willits. More photos. (Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
Grant Willits has a lot to prove this year.
The junior from Pueblo County came into the 2015 state wrestling tournament with his eyes on taking his second state championship. But when weigh-ins took place, Willits missed his cut by a tenth of a pound and was disqualified.
Thursday he made a triumphant return to the floor at Pepsi Center and pinned Littleton’s Poe Di in the 4A 126-pound bracket.
“It feels nice,” Willits said. “I definitely feel like I have a chip on my shoulder. This whole summer I just thought about it all the time and worked harder and harder to make up for what happened last year and try to chase a title this year.”
Willits will face Riley Prough from Glenwood Springs in Friday’s quarterfinals.
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Returning champions, unbeatens roll on
In addition to Shelton, each of the other returning champions in every class advanced to the quarterfinals during the first session at the Pepsi Center. There are a total of 26 — six each in class 2A and 3A, nine in 4A, and five in 5A.
Included in that group are two juniors who have each won championships in their first two seasons: John Mall’s Jonathan Andreatta (2A 120), and Pueblo County’s Hunter Willits (4A 152).
Likewise, all wrestlers who entered the day unbeaten stayed that way. There are five undefeated wrestlers in both 2A and 4A, and three in 3A. The 5A tournament does not have an unbeaten in its field.
Quick pins, total pins
40 wrestlers finished with pins in less than a minute during the first round on Thursday. Of those, 12 came in less than 30 seconds.
The quickest pin of the day belonged to Sergio Campos of Hotchkiss, who took down Calhan’s Matthew Heitmann in 15 seconds at 2A 106. The record for the quickest pin is four seconds.
In the first round of each of the four tournaments, there were a total of 213 pins. By class, 2A had the most first-round pins with 68, 4A had 52, 3A had 51, and 5A had 42
Team races
In 2A, defending champion Rocky Ford leads the field at Round 1 with 30.5 points. Meeker, runner-up a year ago, was second with 28. Centauri is third with 25.
The 3A race is also being led by a defending champion in Valley, which sits at 30 points after the first round. Berthoud is currently in second (24 points), and Dolores Huerta is third (22).
Pueblo County jumped out ahead in the 4A team race, and leads with 34.5 points. The Hornets were runner-up last season. Greeley Central is second with 29.5, Cheyenne Mountain is third with 25, and defending champion Thompson Valley sits fourth with 19.5.
Pomona heads the 5A race with 27 points. Legacy and Pine Creek sit in a tie for second with 21 points, Ponderosa is fourth with 16.5, and Poudre is fifth with 15.5.
Friday’s schedule
The 2A/3A championship quarterfinals will begin at 10 a.m. at the Pepsi Center, with first-round consolations immediately following.
The 4A/5A championship quarterfinals are scheduled for 12:45 p.m., against with first-round consolations immediately following.
Semifinals in all classes are scheduled for 7:15 p.m.
AURORA — History was made Tuesday at the Classification and League Organization Committee meeting. Three times.
For the first time in the history of the Colorado High School Activities Association, schools were allowed to be reclassified as opposed to electing to play down. The CHSAA bylaws were amended in January to allow schools to be reclassified based on a criteria that has more to do than just competitiveness within their current classification.
“That’s the first step in the direction we have to go to keep competitive balance among schools so that they aren’t losing programs due to lack of interest,” CHSAA commissioner Paul Angelico said. “We have to do stuff that keeps kids having some degree of success so that they will want to continue to play the sports they’re playing.”
After the new classification enrollment numbers were voted on, the issue reclassification took center stage as Greeley Central and Montezuma-Cortez looked for reclassification in all sports while Estes Park sought it only for football.
Schools that are reclassified are eligible for postseason play while schools who play down in classification are not.
Greeley Central athletic director Rick Schmitz was the first to present his case. He laid out the socio-economic status of his student body as well as the approximate number of students who are on free and reduced lunch. The fact that the Wildcats have not been overly competitive in team sports also came into play as he made his case.
When pressed about how the Northern League felt about the Wildcats remaining in Class 4A, Niwot athletic director Chase McBride stood up on behalf of the league and said they would continue to welcome Greeley Central with open arms.
“It was a league-motivated decision,” McBride said. “They’ve been a good league member to us and we would like to keep our ties to them as they are.”
In the end, the committee voted to allow the reclassification of Greeley Central marking the first time in state history that a school has been reclassified.
“For our programs, it’s huge,” Schmitz said. “We were concerned about being classified 5A in the team sports. I feel that we met the (reclassification) criteria that they were looking for. And in the future, for other schools who fall in the same situation that we do, I think it can make a huge impact.”
The committee also approved the total reclassification of Montezuma-Cortez, who would’ve classified at 4A under the new enrollment numbers. Citing the socio-economic make-up of the school as well as other factors such as the burden of what it would do to their traveling expenses, athletic director Stacey Hall successfully petitioned CLOC to reclassify the Panthers in all sports.
The committee had earlier granted Estes Park a reclassification in football, keeping them at 1A where they had been in the previous cycle.
The reclassification process is unlike anything the Association has done and is using it as a means to keep schools competitiveness intact. When CLOC first began going down this road, it knew there would be challenges, but overall the committee was pleased with Tuesday’s results.
“When we started this process a year ago, we knew there were going to be some hurdles but we tried to provide as much information as we could from the get go,” said Randy Holmen, the principal at Holly High School who chairs CLOC. “When it got to today we were prepared and we felt like the committee was prepared to answer those questions and to tackle any situations that came up.”
Angelico stressed that the purpose of reclassification was not to simply drop down if a school couldn’t remain competitive in certain sports. He’s confident that CLOC has a system in place that will prevent schools from taking advantage of the system.
“That’s always a concern,” Angelico said. “We operate, though, on a system of trust and integrity. I think as long as we continue to stress the corner stone of how this works and we have a committee that keeps really high standards about what they’ll accept, then I won’t have those concerns.”
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Notables
CLOC approved probationary membership for two new schools: Denver Academy of the Torah (Denver) and Prospect Ridge Academy (Brighton). If approved by the Legislative Council, it would bring CHSAA’s membership to 354 schools.
Abraham Lincoln, Arvada, Cripple Creek-Victor and Del Norte all successfully requested to play down in football.
