Alex Reddington is headed to the Big 10. The St. Mary’s Academy senior signed her letter of intent to swim for the University of Wisconsin on Wednesday.
Reddington is a Class 4A state champion in the 100-meter butterfly and 200 freestyle races and holds school records in the 100 freestyle, 200 freestyle, 100 backstroke, 100 fly, 200 medley relay, 200 freestyle relay, and the 400 freestyle relay.
“I chose the University of Wisconsin because of the extraordinary athletic department and the high level of academics,” Reddington said in a statement released by the school. “I knew from the moment I met the swim team and coaches that it was the school for me. The coaching philosophy and dedication of the athletes made it clear that, with their help, I will achieve my goals and be the best athlete I can be.”
But before she can jump in the pool with the Badgers, Reddington has one more season with the Wildcats.
St. Mary’s Academy will join the new 3A class that begins competition this year. Reddington will look to add several 3A records to go with with her already impressive school records.
The Sun Devils were the lone team to go through the regular season unbeaten at 13-0-2. As a result, they finished No. 1 in the final RPI standings of the season, which were finalized at 7 p.m. Thursday.
The eight-team playoff field was seeded according to those final RPI standings.
The full bracket, which begins play on Friday, is available here:
Kent Denver will host No. 8 seed St. Mary’s Academy at 4:15 p.m. on Friday.
Palmer Ridge is the No. 2 seed, and hosts No. 7 Regis Jesuit at 4 p.m. Friday.
Colorado Academy, the four-time defending champions, ended up as the No. 3 seed. The Mustangs will host No. 6 Mountain Vista at 11 a.m. Saturday.
No. 4 Denver East hosts No. Cherry Creek at 6 p.m. Friday.
The tournament runs quickly: The semifinals are next Tuesday, with the championship slated for next Thursday. Both of those rounds will be played at All-City Stadium in Denver.
ENGLEWOOD — Lutheran volleyball beat St. Mary’s Academy 3-1 on Tuesday as Abby Akers had 16 kills.
The Lions, who won the match 16-25, 25-14, 25-19, 25-16, also got 15 kills from Payton Brgoch and another 11 from Tori Bjorgum. Kenzie Graves led the team with 21 digs, and Kennedey Johnson had 41 assists.
On the eve of the softball season, one newly-announced co-op has changed the structure of the classification alignment.
Englewood and St. Mary’s Academy applied for a co-op in softball on Tuesday. The CHSAA office granted the request, which means the two schools will combine to have one program. Players from both schools will play for one program, under the Englewood banner.
The co-op also means the two schools will combine enrollment. Separately, Englewood (602) and St. Mary’s Academy (254) were each going to be 3A programs. But their combined enrollment of 856 places them above the 4A threshold of 626 students.
As a result, the new Englewood team has been moved from Class 3A to Class 4A, and will need to qualify for the postseason in 4A. As they were already in the 3A/4A Colorado 7 League, Englewood’s league affiliation has not changed.
“We’re losing a team in 3A — a competitive team — and they move to a competitive 4A classification,” said Bud Ozzello, the CHSAA assistant commissioner in charge of softball. “But with the new postseason qualification procedures in place through RPI, it is an easy change to make.”
The 4A teams playing in the Colorado 7 will remain with one automatic qualifier to the postseason. The 3A Colorado 7 teams do not have an automatic qualifier, unless they win the league outright.
St. Mary’s Academy has not had a softball program in the past, though its players have played for Englewood under the state law that allows participants to play for other schools if their school doesn’t offer a program.
However, Englewood did not have enough players on its own to field a team, according to CHSAA assistant commissioner Bert Borgmann, who oversees co-ops. And so the two schools decided to officially form a co-op to ensure the program would have enough players.
Though co-ops are usually approved by the CHSAA office at this point, it is atypical for a team to change classifications this late, Borgmann said.
“It does happen at times, though it is more generally with smaller schools. Sometimes, they just don’t have enough kids,” he said. “The whole point of co-ops is to allow kids to participate, and to maintain programs. This is a perfect example of that.”
Bridget Sutter of Colorado Academy is the girls lacrosse player of the year for the second-straight season. (Matt Daniels/MattDanPhoto.com)
The 2016 all-state girls lacrosse teams honor the best players in the sport as judged by the leagues and coaches. They 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.
Player and coach of the year was also selected by a vote of the coaches.
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Player of the year: Bridget Sutter, Colorado Academy
The seven titles are the most since Regis Jesuit and Cheyenne Mountain each won seven in 2010-11.
Five teams tied for second place in the state with three team championships this season: Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado Academy, Kent Denver, Pomona and Regis Jesuit.
Colorado Academy and Valor Christian each had a state-best three girls championships, while Valor’s four titles were the most on the boys’ side.
In all, 67 different teams won a team championship in 2015-16, including 16 teams which won multiple championships.
A breakdown of team championships is below.
Rank
Team
Girls
Boys
Co-Ed
Total
1
Valor Christian
3
4
0
7
2
Cheyenne Mountain
2
1
0
3
2
Colorado Academy
3
0
0
3
2
Kent Denver
1
2
0
3
2
Pomona
1
2
0
3
2
Regis Jesuit
0
3
0
3
7
Broomfield
1
1
0
2
7
Cherokee Trail
1
1
0
2
7
Cherry Creek
1
1
0
2
7
Eaton
2
0
0
2
7
Fairview
2
0
0
2
7
Grandview
2
0
0
2
7
Heritage Christian
1
1
0
2
7
Lutheran
1
1
0
2
7
Mountain Vista
1
1
0
2
7
Yuma
2
0
0
2
17
Air Academy
1
0
0
1
17
Alamosa
0
1
0
1
17
Aspen
1
0
0
1
17
Battle Mountain
0
1
0
1
17
Bayfield
0
1
0
1
17
Bennett
1
0
0
1
17
Buena Vista
0
1
0
1
17
Castle View
0
0
1
1
17
Cedaredge
0
1
0
1
17
Cheyenne Wells
1
0
0
1
17
Colorado Springs Christian
0
1
0
1
17
Dawson School
0
1
0
1
17
Durango
0
1
0
1
17
Eads
0
1
0
1
17
Eaglecrest
1
0
0
1
17
Evergreen
0
1
0
1
17
Faith Christian
0
1
0
1
17
Fleming
0
1
0
1
17
Fort Collins
1
0
0
1
17
Fossil Ridge
0
1
0
1
17
Holly
0
1
0
1
17
Idalia
1
0
0
1
17
Lewis-Palmer
1
0
0
1
17
Lyons
0
1
0
1
17
Meeker
0
1
0
1
17
Monarch
1
0
0
1
17
Mountain Range
1
0
0
1
17
Mountain View
0
1
0
1
17
Niwot
1
0
0
1
17
Otis
1
0
0
1
17
Overland
0
1
0
1
17
Palmer Ridge
1
0
0
1
17
Paonia
1
0
0
1
17
Peak to Peak
0
1
0
1
17
Ponderosa
1
0
0
1
17
Pueblo County
0
1
0
1
17
Pueblo East
0
1
0
1
17
Pueblo West
0
1
0
1
17
Salida
1
0
0
1
17
Sanford
0
1
0
1
17
Sedgwick County
0
1
0
1
17
St. Mary’s
0
0
1
1
17
Strasburg
1
0
0
1
17
Telluride
1
0
0
1
17
The Classical Academy
1
0
0
1
17
ThunderRidge
1
0
0
1
17
University
1
0
0
1
17
Vail Christian
1
0
0
1
17
Vail Mountain
1
0
0
1
17
Valley
0
1
0
1
17
Windsor
0
1
0
1
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Individual Championships
Cheyenne Mountain had a state-best 11 individual champions in 2015-16. (Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com)
Cheyenne Mountain also had an outstanding year in terms of individual titles, leading the state with 11 championships. The program was well balanced: Six championships came from its girls teams, and five came from the boys.
Lutheran’s 10 individual championships were the second-most in the state, including a state-best nine boys titles. Regis Jesuit was third with nine individual titles, and Air Academy and Pomona tied for fourth with eight apiece.
A total of 135 schools had at least one individual champion, and 82 had multiple champions. Of those, 21 schools had at least five individual champions.
Brooke Stenstrom is the 4A girls swimmer of the year. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
The 2016 all-state girls swimming teams are presented by CHSAANow.com, ColoradoPreps.com and MaxPreps.
These teams were created based upon results at the state meet.
Swimmers of the year were selected based upon the number of team points they produced at the state meet. This means that they received the full amount of team points from individual events they swam in, as well as one-fourth of the total points earned by the team in relays they swam in.
Finally, in order to be considered for swimmer of the year, athletes must first have made the all-state team by winning in a championship.
Divers of the year were selected by finish at the state meet, as were coaches of the year.
Scroll down to see the teams, or use the menu below to navigate to the class of your choosing.
Windsor’s Morgan Friesen, pictured during her win in the 200 IM. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
NORTHGLENN – Morgan Friesen is three-quarters of the way to pulling off a rarity in Colorado high school swimming.
The Windsor junior won her third Class 4A state title in the 100-yard breaststroke Saturday, putting her in position to pull off a quadruple in the event next year.
It is one of the hardest strokes for a competitive swimmer to master, but Friesen has achieved that. In fact, she set the all-classification record in the event last year.
“I had issues learning it,” she said. “It was my weak stroke.”
Because of that, she began working harder.
Then, “Something clicked,” she said of the mechanics starting to come together.
It was doubly sweet as earlier in the afternoon she won her first state title in the 200 individual medley.
Friesen is already focused on next year. She swims year-round and her club workouts begin Monday.
The day belonged to Valor Christian, however. The Eagles ran away with the team title at the state meet. Scoring 320 points to outdistance Evergreen by 68 points. Cheyenne Mountain was third with 249.
Valor Christian won the 4A team championship. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
The Eagles’ Brooke Stenstrom set a 4A state record in the 50 freestyle. Her time of 23.22 seconds eclipsed her year-old mark by .21. It was also an All-American time. It marked Stenstrom’s third straight state title in the event.
She also took the title in the 100 freestyle, which she also won as a sophomore, in All-American time (50.63).
Stenstrom capped off her day by anchoring the Eagles’ winning 200 medley and 400 freestyle relay teams.
The medley team broke Manitou Springs’ 4A record, which was set in Friday’s preliminaries. Both teams swam All-American times.
For her efforts, the Stanford-bound senior was selected as the meet’s swimmer of the year.
Her mother Lori is the Eagles’ head coach. She came into the state meet knowing her team was good. She just wasn’t sure how good.
“They exceeded my expectations,” Lori Stenstrom said. “Every single girl on this team stepped up.”
Kate McDonald of Evergreen was a repeat champion in the 500 freestyle.
Alex Reddington of St. Mary’s Academy swam an All-American time in the 100 butterfly, setting a 4A record of 55.05 and edging out last year’s champion, Cat Wright of Cheyenne Mountain.
