By John Cackowski
State Director

During the last month of the season at the 5A level there have been teams such as Chatfield, Columbine, Regis, Mountain Vista, Fairview, Cherry Creek, Rocky Mountain and Arvada West, who have taken a lot of the spotlight with their great play down the stretch going into districts. Chatfield, Regis, Mountain Vista, Fairview, Cherry Creek, and Rocky Mountain would go on to advance into the Final 8 along with Chaparral. One team everyone seems to have forgotten about is the defending 5A state champions ThunderRidge who will also be joining in the final dance, and the Grizzlies are just fine with the lack of attention.

At the start of the season ThunderRidge was ranked nationally by Baseball America and was invited with Regis to attend the country’s most prestigious high school baseball tournament the NHSA hosted by USA Baseball in Cary, North Carolina.  ThunderRidge showed well in the tournament going 2-2, and on their way to looking like they were primed and ready to defend their 5A state championship in Colorado.

As with all defending championship teams, in Colorado they were playing with a target on their back, and at the end of the season ThunderRidge would go on to lose 5 of their last 8 games. Three of those losses were against 3 teams that also made the final 8 (Mountain Vista, Regis, Rocky Mountain).

But if you watched them play in District 8 at Arvada West, you watched a team that plays with a lot of confidence, has strong leadership, and knew they just needed to find a way to get to next weekend.

ThunderRidge would lose leads in the 3^rd inning of 3- 0 to Northglenn and Horizon. In a lot of situations high school teams would feel pressure losing leads in the middle of a win or go home game. Not ThunderRidge. That was when seniors Brody Westmoreland, A.J. Jones, Ty Loptein, and Mark Hopper raised their game. Hopper in the 6^th inning against Northglenn would get a go ahead base hit to go up 5-4.  When Horizon took a 4-3 lead in the 3^rd A.J. Jones and B.Y.U. commit said that was enough and struck out 5 of his last 7 batters he faced when only striking out 2 of his first 14. When San Diego State commit Ty Loptein came in both games to get two saves, you almost got a sense he was just toying with Northglenn and Horizon. Then there was the other San Diego State commit Brody Westmoreland who played so well on the big stage at All-City last year. Westmoreland when it appears he never sees a pitch to hit anymore would hit 2 homeruns the opposite way against Horizon, the last one putting the game away in the bottom of the 6^th.

The final 8 teams left are all very deep and talented. Fairview has dominated with great pitching all year, Chaparral is very athletic, Regis is loaded with D-1 talent, Mountain Vista can slug it out or play a low scoring game, Rocky Mountain and Cherry Creek have their annual invite and always are playing their best baseball this time of season, and Chatfield has shown resiliency all season with more walk off home runs then we can remember. Then there is ThunderRidge, led by a few seniors who seem to play their best when the pressure is the highest. Will be a fun 5A championship series.