SPORTS

People, places, events dot prep sports recap

BY STEVE SMITH SSMITH@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

It felt like a normal year.

After COVID-caused interruptions and cancellations, 2022 felt like a much more normal year in the world of prep sports. Masks weren’t required, and crowds came to cheer on their teams.

It also meant a fuller slate of things to present on our pages during the year. Here’s a list of some of the things we talked about in 2022.

Sports people

We talked about people. A lot of people. Like Brighton High School grad and baseball player Brandon Stricklin, who changed schools and settled on the University of Northern Colorado.

Riverdale Ridge pitcher Ty ompson will join Stricklin next year at the University of Northern Colorado. He’s the rst Ravens’ baseball player to join the top level of collegiate baseball programs.

Riverdale Ridge girls soccer forward Ashlee Trujillo wanted a new school that o ered nursing studies and some more soccer on the side. She found such a place and signed her college letter of intent to do those things at Concordia University.

Trujillo was one of the original Ravens’ girls soccer players. She was a goalie before moving into the forward position.

Riverdale Ridge’s RJ Holliday followed a basic human instinct in choosing his college.

Eight student-athletes from Brighton High School signed letters of intent March 29 to continue their educational and athletic pursuits in college.

Leah Day signed to play soccer at Black Hills State in Spear sh, South Dakota. Annika Cunningham, who is a cheerleader, will take those talents to Hutchinson (Kansas) Community college. Mariah Niday heads for Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, to play softball, and Bryce Peterson will play baseball at Western Nebraska Community College in Scottsblu , Nebraska.

Nathaniel Gri eth chose to play football at Wisconsin Lutheran College in Milwaukee. Noah Canale picked Valley City State University in Valley City, North Dakota, to play football. Bo French picked Chadron (Nebraska) State College for volleyball, and Hailey Wright wants to play volleyball at Eastern Nazarene College in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Prairie View’s Ashton Buckalew picked a college that has an interesting mascot .. a river otter.

But he didn’t pick Ottawa (Kansas) University for the school nickname.

His o cial visit included a chance to meet some of his new teammates “which made me fall in love with the school.”

We followed the recovery of Noble Haskell, who was injured critically in a car crash in Missouri. He is the son of Brighton’s former basketball coach and golf coach Eli Haskell.

Noble was own to Wichita, where he had two emergency surgeries to fuse his vertebrae. His mom received a call and drove through the night to reach his bedside.

Profi les

When he gets older, Brighton High School alum Tyler Samson will have some stories to tell about the early stages of his hockey career. ere was the pandemic that, among other things, caused at least one game to be postponed shortly after a six-hour bus trip to the rink. en there was a bus re that cost him all of his hockey sticks before his participation in a showcase game before Christmas 2021. en there was the draft for the North American 3 Hockey League. Eventually, Samson wound up playing for the Rum River Mallards in Isanti, Minnesota, a swap he heard about after Mass.

So when he says he’s back to a normal routine - and away from COVID - he means it.

“Fans are back in the arenas, I can show up to the rink whenever I want to, and I don’t have to wear a mask anymore inside of the arenas,” Samson said. “It feels good to have my normal routine back and to have no more worries and distractions.”

Jasylnn Gallegos was one of the rst high-school girl wrestlers in Colorado to stand on the awards podium. e former Brighton High School student competed for Skyview High School at the time.

She went 14-3 during the justcompleted season at Presbyterian College in Clinton, South Carolina, including a championship in the National Collegiate Women’s Wrestling Championship Southeast Regional tournament.

But she won’t be back to defend her title next season. After a three-year stay at Presbyterian, she entered the NCAA transfer portal to nd a new school .. North Central College in Naperville, Ill.

“I felt a change could create more opportunities for me,” she said. “Overall, it was a great experience. I made a few friendships that I am sure will last a lifetime.”

State tournaments

Brighton’s Dylan Bravo-Packer completed a sweep of pinfall wins through the 220-pound bracket at the state 5A wrestling tournament. e result was a state championship. ree members of Riverdale Ridge’s team placed at the state 4A tournament. AJ Hague (113 pounds) was third. Domonic Cerda (145) took fth. Ian Ingalls was sixth at 106 pounds.

AJ Hague (113 pounds), Domonic Cerda (145 pounds) and Ian Ingalls (106 pounds) placed this year.

“I wasn’t really doing anything too di erent, just trying to keep

Riverdale Ridge’s Bradley Weinmaster rolls in a birdie putt at the fi rst hole of the Frederick Golf Classic Aug. 25 at Coyote Creek Golf Club in Fort Lupton. FILE PHOTOS

my head in the right state of mind and take what I have been wanting,” Cerda said. “In my opinion, it doesn’t matter to me how my opponents wrestle. All I know is I have to beat them, and I try to.”

In March, the Eagle Ridge Academy boys basketball team advanced to the state 3A quarter nals for the rst time. ERA won 21 games, plus the Warriors hosted and won a district basketball tournament for the rst time and advanced to the state 3A basketball quarter nals for the rst time.

Riverdale Ridge’s rst trip to the Sweet 16 of the state 4A boys basketball tournament did not end in a win. But it might set the stage for future endeavors for the program, according to coach Byron Gray.

“ ese guys are young. We’ve got a young group,.” he said. “We’re preparing for the future. We’re going to keep building, keep adding on. is is year four of the program. is is where we are at. at’s not bad at all.” e Ravens lost just three seniors - Lane Hawkins, Anthony Chavez and RJ Holliday - to graduation.

“ ere’s a bunch of talent in the pipeline,” Gray said. “We’ve got some eighth-graders coming in. We’re going to be solid.”

Obit

Former Fort Lupton High School state wrestling champion Joe Serna died at Prairie View High School Aug. 30.

Serna won his state title in 2000. As a sophomore, he beat Valley’s Jeremy Wright 6-5 in the 171-pound nals and nished the season with a 35-1 record. He is one of 49 individual state title-winners in Bluedevils’ history.

Tom Galicia, Fort Lupton’s current wrestling coach, knew Serna.

“He was a great wrestler for Fort Lupton (state champion) and Brighton (two-time runner-up) high schools,” Galicia said. “It was sad to hear what happened. He was doing something he loved - wrestling - when this tragedy happened.”

Spring state sports

In the spring, the games moved outside. Brighton High School came close to moving to the state 5A baseball tournament, only to lose to Chaparral in eight innings. e Bulldogs nished 18-7.

“I don’t know how many we left on, but it had to be double digits,” said BHS coach Justin Stringer. “We had to be able to nd a hole or a gap, hit by pitch or something? Man. We made tons of plays. Brok (pitcher Brok Eddy) had control of the game.”

Eddy nished with an eight-hitter and 10 strikeouts.

“We couldn’t nd a hit early in the game that would have put us on top,” Stringer said.

An hour or so before Riverdale Ridge’s Lucas Couron began his state-championship e ort in the boys state 4A pole vault May 22 at a brisk Je co Stadium, he left.

Couron’s top height was a seasonbest 15 feet 9 inches, beating his old standard by 2 inches. He tried three times to set a new state meet record at 16 feet 1/2 inch but came up short.

For the second time in school history, the Eagle Ridge Academy Warriors moved beyond the opening round of the state 3A girls soccer playo s.

ERA shut out Roaring Fork 2-0 at a wind-blown Riverdale Ridge High School May 11. Megan Derby scored the eventual game-winner in the 66th minute. Brianna Gelok added an insurance goal in the last 10 minutes. e win was the Warriors’ seventh in a row and pushed ERA into a second-round match at Prospect Ridge Academy. It starts at 4 p.m. Saturday, May 14. e last time the Warriors (12-31) went this far in the state tournament was 2019.

ERA lost in the quarter nals.

Milestones

How about some on- eld/oncourt accomplishments?

Prairie View’s Domonic Marrujo nds himself a member of an exclusive club that sits at three members - at least through the end of the 2022 boys basketball season.

Marrujo joins underHawks’ alums Kam Vincel and Trey Marble in the 1,000-point-for-a-career club. Marrujo was aware he was getting close toward the latter part of the regular season.

It was time to fold up the Eastern Metro Athletic Conference. In the biannual reorganization of prep school leagues, teams in the EMAC wound up as members of other conferences. Brighton and Prairie View high schools joined the Front Range League.

Before Denene (Jacovetta) Shivley became a technology teacher at Southeast Elementary School in Brighton, she was a self-admitted tomboy.

“I was never into dolls,” she said. “My grandmother tried to get me to like dolls and dresses. I just didn’t.” at self-admitted tomboy joined the Regis University athletic hall of fame. e football team manager at Prairie View High School had a chance to take center stage Oct. 21 during the underHawks’ game against Mullen High School.

Johnathan Salzer, who has Down’s syndrome, ran the length of the eld for a fourth-quarter touchdown.

Players from both teams mobbed Salzer in the end zone. e line judge even st-bumped Salzer as he made his way back to the bench. Blanford-Green, who stepped down at the end of this school year.

Blanford Green took in her last Colorado High School Activities Association Legislative Council meeting April 21.

She discussed the association’s budget, and she thanked the council for the privilege of serving as CHSAA’s commissioner.

“We’ve been through a lot together the past 14 months,” she said.

Her husband passed away, as did former associate commissioner Tom Robinson.

“ ere were a lot of times when I had to be Rhonda and be the commissioner,” she said. “I had to have a safe place to be Rhonda.”

Robinson died this spring at the age of 74. e former associate commissioner of the Colorado High School Activities Association Bert Borgmann said a lot of things came to mind. e boys tennis postseason had an historic new look starting this fall. e change involves the state team championship, a dual-style tournament in mid-October, according to CHSAANow.com. e individual championships won’t change. ey will take place the second week in October.

High-school o cials’ fees are among the lowest among nearby states, according to Riverdale Ridge athletic director Aaron Reisen. e pay scale depends on the level of game (junior varsity vs. varsity) and how many o cials are assigned to work.

By comparison, Texas high-school football o cials were paid, at minimum, $105 to $135 per game this season.

According to retired CHSAA umpire Dan Weikle, who worked statelevel playo games during many of his 46 years as a certi ed baseball o cial, the pay for an umpire in 1964 was $10 per game.

“If you extrapolate that out, that’s $88 today,” he said a year ago. “We get paid $62. e pay hasn’t kept up with in ation.”

Fall state sports

October was quite the month for Riverdale Ridge athletes. Softball player Aubree Davis, who was chosen to participate in an all-star game this spring in Pueblo, lasted less than an inning in the rst round of the state tournament. She also hit a walk-o home run to give the Ravens the win.

“I was feeling a little excitement,” she said. “ at was the pivotal moment in the game. I’m glad it happened. I don’t know what kind of a pitch it was. But I know I hit it far.”

Ravens’ golfer Bradley Weinmaster thought he lost the individual title in the state 4A golf tournament. en he found out he was in a fourway playo . en he won it. Maybe that’s why Riverdale Ridge’s Bradley Weinmaster was overcome with tears, happiness and joy - sometimes all at the same time at Pelican Lakes Golf Course.

“I was in tears walking o the hole,” Weinmaster said. “Zane (Zane Aiken of Ponderosa) told me his scores were wrong. I was in second, and I thought `next year.’ I was like `Oh my God. I have a chance.’ God works ways.”

Riverdale Ridge’s 138-pound wrestler Domonic Cerda tries to fl y over Eagle Valley’s Lucas Comroe during Friday’s Class 3A quarters fi nals of the State Wrestling Championships at the Pepsi Center in Denver. Cerda lost the match to a 11-6 decision.

Brighton’s Brandon Stricklin is tagged out at third by Prairie View’s Javi Gaeta during an East Metro Athletic Conference game at Prairie View April 23. Stricklin, who graduated this year, moved on to the University of Northern Colorado FILE PHOTOS

Solution

© 2016 King Features Synd., Inc.

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