No matter what the Grand Junction Central softball team does – and it has done plenty in the first few weeks of the season – the Warriors know they are fighting an uphill battle.
In short, they are not from the Denver metro area, so they are not perceived as a true contender.
“They are always thinking that we can’t play,” Grand Junction Central pitcher Mikayla Duffy said. “And even if they think we can play a little, they don’t really know until they play us and we come out ready to beat them and show them what we got.”
The Warriors (9-0) are doing everything they can to change the not-from-Denver-not-good image. They blasted their way to a clean sweep of the Dave Sanders Memorial Softball Tournament at Aurora Sports Park over the weekend, going 5-0, including a 16-6 triumph against Mountain Vista in the championship game.
Grand Junction Central, a first-round casualty at the state tournament last season, entered Tuesday’s Southwestern League opener against Montrose as the only perfect team in Class 5A (even two-time defending champion Legacy has a tie on its record).
The Warriors, behind clutch hitting from Jessica Romine, Danielle Romine, Tayler Else and others, also defeated Arvada West, Pueblo County, Grandview and Eaglecrest in the tournament. They outscored their five foes a whopping 62-16. The Smoky Hill game, a 5-0 win, was the only contest in which the Warriors were held to single digits.
“It definitely gives us a little spunk in our step,” Duffy said.
Best of the best: While no-hitters and even perfect games seem to be fairly commonplace in the early portions of the season, a large number of those occur in five-, four-, or even three-inning games when the winning team is shellacking the overmatched foe 20-0 or something similar.
A few performances in the early weeks of the schedule overshadowed those nine-out no-hitters, more painstaking outings in which the pitcher had to go the distance but remain as untouched as the turn signal in a granny’s minivan.
On Sept. 4, Eaglecrest junior Raya Johnson tossed a seven-inning perfect game in a 9-0 win against Scottsbluff (Neb.). Johnson added a one-hit shutout against Monarch and two-hit shutout against Centennial League rival Cherry Creek last week.
On Sept. 3, Fort Lupton’s Taylor Schaefer threw a seven-inning no-hitter and struck out 11 while blanking Weld Central 6-0.
Perhaps the most notable performance, though, was turned in by Niwot’s Kali Haas. In a 2-0, 11-inning win against Frederick on Sept. 8, Haas held the Warriors to a 2-for-36 performance at the plate and struck out 21.
Numbers game: 1 loss entering the week for surprising Standley Lake, which darted to a 10-0 start. The Gators’ streak ended Friday with a 3-0 loss to Legacy. They begin league play in the rugged Jefferson County League this week.
Trending upward: Led by the hitting of Jacqueline Booz and Kelsey Berhardt, and the pitching of Tess Orrino, the upstart Mountain Range softball team entered the week 8-1.
The Mustangs, in their second season at 5A, have morphed into one of the key teams in the Front Range League. Their lone blemish was a 7-6 loss to Golden in the Brighton City Invitational, where the Mustangs went 4-1.
Booz is hitting .500 with three home runs and 17 RBI, Berhardt is hitting .462 and Orrino is 6-0 in the pitching circle.
Boys Soccer
For the second time in as many weeks, the Nos. 1 and 2 teams in the Colorado High School Coaches Association/MaxPreps poll will meet on the field.
Last week, Class 5A’s top-ranked Denver East played No. 2 Boulder in the first round of the Arapahoe Warrior Classic, with the defending state champion Angels scoring a 2-1 victory. The host Warriors eventually won the tournament with a victory against Mullen.
On Wednesday (Sept. 16), the top teams in Class 3A match up, when No. 2 Kent Denver makes the trip to Colorado Springs Christian, which assumed the favored spot in the poll this week.
The Lions (2-0-1) blanked Weld Central in their opener, before scoring a 2-1 victory against 5A Air Academy. They tied 3A powerhouse Denver Christian 2-2, in advance of the showdown with Kent Denver.
Colorado Springs Christian has been paced by Zac Egeler (three goals) and Daniel Broas (three assists). The only blemish on Kent Denver’s record (2-1-0) is a loss to Denver East.
Corner kicks: James Irwin claimed the title at the Fountain Valley Invitational, besting the host Danes 3-2 in the championship. The Jaguars (4-1-0) outscored their opponents 19-5 in the event, paced by Juan Alverez. Alverez scored nine goals in the three games, including two against Fountain Valley. The senior has scored 13 goals overall this season, to lead the state by one over Boulder’s Spencer Sarson entering Tuesday’s competition . . . Lincoln won the Air Academy Kadet Kickoff title with a 5-2 win against Green Mountain. The Lancers are off to a 4-0 start . . . St. Mary’s senior Jack Gendron totaled six goals and two assists in a 10-2 win against Bishop Machebeuf on Saturday . . . Highlighting the schedule later in the week is Silver Creek at top-ranked Niwot in the Class 4A Northern League (Friday), and two 5A beauties with Cherry Creek at Fort Collins and rivals Arapahoe and Heritage meeting. Both the 5A games are on Saturday.
MaxPreps Colorado editor Gerry Valerio contributed to this report. Follow Valerio on Twitter for Colorado high school sports updates.