Colorado Preps Weekly

The final month of the spring sports season is upon us and it's time to start handing out hardware. Boys volleyball crowned its state champion last week and girls tennis joins the party this weekend. Track and field and 1A baseball finals are next week and everything else finishes no later than June 4.

While there aren't many tennis programs in the area, two saw athletes qualify for the 3A state tournament as alternates. Fort Morgan Olivia Wolff (1 singles), Ali Guerrero (3 singles) and Merle Glaser/Ana Hernandez (3 doubles) are all alternates from Region 4. La Junta's Torrin Mendoza-Werner is the 2 singles alternate from Region 7. The Class 3A state tournament takes place Thursday through Saturday, at Memorial Park in Colorado Springs.

Girls soccer completed its regular season and the state tournaments are set to begin this week. Lamar, who dropped a 2-0 decision to Woodland Park last week, finished the regular season at 13-1. The Savages earned the #3 seed for the Class 2A bracket, garnering a first round match with #14 Rye on Friday. Lamar won the regular season contest 4-1. The winner will face either #6 Telluride or #11 Vanguard in the quarterfinals. Lamar beat Vanguard 4-0 during the campaign, while Rye fell to the Coursers, 6-3. Neither side played Telluride.

Class 1A baseball finished its district tournament round last weekend, with 16 teams qualifying for this weekend's regional brackets. Merino earned the top overall seed for the postseason by defeating Haxtun 15-3 for the championship in District 5. The Rams are 20-2 overall, and have won six straight games entering the week. Haxtun also qualified for the regional round, as did Caliche, Otis and Prairie from the district.

Cheyenne Wells pitched its way to the District 4 title, allowing a total of five runs in three tournament games. That includes a 1-0 win over Holly in the championship contest. Blake Gilmore went the distance, scattering nine hits and two walks to earn the shutout victory. The win locked the Tigers in as the #2 seed for regionals. Holly, Granada, Stratton and Eads also qualified for regionals, matching District 5's total of five teams in the 16-team field.

Evangelical Christian also sprung a bit of an upset in the district round. The Eagles earned the title in District 2, bouncing the top seed Simla 20-4. Simla had beaten ECA 7-6 during the regular season. The win puts ECA as a regional host, while Simla and Elbert will be on the road this weekend.

Thirty-two teams will punch their ticket into the regional field in Class 2A, with all spots decided by the final RPI standings. The top eight in that metric will host regional brackets beginning next Saturday.

As of Monday morning, Limon (1), Rye(3), Burlington (6) and Swink (8) were all sitting in the top eight. Rye hosts Peyton (2nd RPI) on Wednesday and visits Swink for two on Friday, highlighting the final week of regular season play. Burlington has an important doubleheader with Yuma on Saturday. The Indians have won four straight and seven of their last nine, climbing to 10th in the RPI.

Joining those five in the top 32 of the RPI as of Monday were Wiggins (11), Trinidad (14), Fowler (15), Akron (16), Wray (17), Las Animas (18), Byers (19), Crowley County (28), Rocky Ford (30) and Holyoke (31 The regular season concludes next Tuesday, and the bracket will be seeded the following day.

Classes 3A and 4A will also see 32 teams make the postseason field In 3A, the eight league champions will earn a berth into the bracket, with the remaining 24 spots coming from RPI. Patriot League has the top two teams in the RPI, and five of the top 11. Sterling sits fourth to begin the final week of action, with Brush sitting 10th. Eaton and University lead the pack.

In the Tri-Peaks, Manitou Springs (6th) sits on top of the standings, with St. Mary's and La Junta each one game back in the loss column. La Junta began the week 25th in the RPI, six spots behind rival Lamar. Those two met on Monday night. The league tournament is this weekend.

For Class 4A, any league with at least seven teams will qualify its top two teams into regionals. If a league has six or fewer teams, only the league champion is guaranteed a spot. The rest of the field is set by RPI. Fort Morgan is part of a three-way tie for second in the Longs Peak and the Mustangs have two games this week with the league leader, Severance. They sat 15th in the RPI to begin the week, so it would seem that the Mustangs will likely be part of the bracket for the postseason.

Girls golf wraps up at the end of the month, and the top performers are continuing their steady play. Holyoke won the team title in its own tournament on Thursday, but it was Washington County's Kendall Velder who stood atop the individual standings with a 92. That was four shots better than Brush's Haley Ostwald Sabryn Burris (Holyoke) and Mary Dracon (Washington County) tied for third, four more shots back.

Velder and Dracon helped Washington County win the team title the following day in the Wildcat Invitational at Eads. Velder won the event with a 94, and Dracon was second with a 95.

Rye eked out a one shot victory over Pueblo West last Monday in the SCA Spartan Invite at Hollydot. Emma Garcia tied Swink's Kinzie Ensor for first place with both carding an 84 Rye's Paige Hyatt was fourth with an 89. The Thunderbolts posted a team tally of 278.

This week will provide the track and field athletes their final chances to improve upon their current standings, ahead of the state meet which begins next Thursday. Most of the small schools will converge upon Limon, the host site for the 1A Invitational.

Brush will welcome in a very attractive field on Thursday for their Beetdigger Invitational. Cheyenne Wells, Merino, Crowley County, Heritage Christian, Holyoke, Cheraw, Wray, Strasburg and Sedgwick County will all bring some of the top performers in the state to the meet.

Friday will see another loaded field at the Friday Night Lights Cyclone Invitational at Pueblo West. Most of the top squads from southeast Colorado will be in action there.