Delta coaches Luis Meza, center, and Clayton Curtis congratulate 152-pound senior Hunter Brasfield after an upset win sent him into the 4A Region 4 semifinals.
Hotchkiss senior Joe Boyle controls Ruben Chagoya of Basalt to win a 3A Region 1 title. He is one of 7 Hotchkiss state qualifiers.
Hotchkiss and Paonia boys will square off this week on the basketball courts. Both are 6-4 in league play.
Delta senior Brooke Taylor scores two of her 12 points against Summit after grabbing an offensive rebound.
Paonia 195-pounder Tyler “TK” Kendall sets Rangely’s Drew Collins up for a pin.
Paonia freshman Bo Pipher sets TJ Richard of North Park up for a pin in Saturday’s regional semifinal round. He is one of 13 Paonia wrestlers headed to state!
Surrounded by coaches and his dad, Conner Beard signs Letter of Intent to play football for the University of Nebraska Kearney.
Hotchkiss' Jacobe Galley signed a Letter of Intent to play football and study engineering at Colorado Mesa University.
Hotchkiss senior Cody Bartlett signed his National Letter of Intent to run cross-country for Hawaii Pacific University.
Delta third-sacker Chad Fedler squeezes the mitt for an out during play in last week’s game against Olathe. The Panthers earned a 12-2 win against the Pirates on March 28 but lost to Palisade and split a doubleheader with Steamboat in other games.
Three of the four games played by Delta's baseball team had league meanings this past week. Only the Panthers game with Olathe on March 28 was a non-conference matchup.
Delta won that contest 12-2 and that helped with the overall record. Delta began their week, however, with 4A WSL foe Palisade in Grand Junction. The Bulldogs outscored Delta 7-3 to hand the Panthers a league loss.
On Saturday, Delta was in Craig to face the Steamboat Springs' Sailors for doubleheader action. Delta lost the first game 5-2 but rebounded to win the second 6-1.
With last week's play, Delta dropped from first to third in league standings with a 3-2 record. Palisade and Eagle Valley are battling for first with records of 7-1 and 5-1 respectively.
Palisade 7, Delta 3
The Panthers trailed 1-0 after two innings and 5-0 after three. Palisade scored their first run on one hit and help from three walks.
Neither team scored in the fourth and Delta plated their first run in the fifth after Tyler Sandoval opened with a double and Jordan Sandoval and Isaiah Kathrein drilled singles. Both Sandovals scored in the inning cutting Palisade's lead to 5-2.
Palisade added two insurance runs in the sixth.
Austin Hines ripped a triple to start the seventh and made it home on Jordan Sandoval's single to make the final score 7-3.
Keaton Reiher, Jordan Sandoval and Kathrein had two hits each for the Panthers. Three Palisade players had two hits each to pace the Bulldogs' offense.
Delta 12, Olathe 2
Olathe opened its game with the Panthers by scoring twice in the first inning. A walk to Fernando Madrid, a triple to Bryce Markley, and an RBI single off the bat of Josh Pietak produced the two runs for the Pirates.
Keaton Reiher started things off for the Panthers with a walk with Chad Fedler reaching the same way. The Panthers got singles from Chris Lopez and Tyler Sandoval providing Delta's first run when Reiher crossed home plate.
Kathrein faced just three Pirates in the top of the second and struck out two of them. In the bottom of the inning, Austin Kimber was hit by a pitch and Seth Hartmen drew a walk. A Reiher singleplated Kimber to tie the score at 2-2.
After that, Delta seemed to have free reign as the Panthers hammered out nine more hits and scored 10 more runs to end the game after five innings of play. Six of those 10 runs came in the fourth inning on six hits, all of which were extra base hits.
Delta picked up two runs in the fifth for a 10-run advantage over the Pirates that ended the game.
Lopez, Jordan Sandoval, Tyler Sandoval and Hines all finished with two hits for Delta.
Ben Kaylor, Markley, and Pietak had hits for Olathe. Markley had a triple and Pietak a double for the Pirates.
SS 5, Delta 2
Game one of double-header play was defensive in nature with only four hits being given up by the Panthers' Tyler Jordan. Unfortunately for Delta, the Sailors scored five runs to win the game 5-2.
Delta started in fine fashion with a pair of runs in the top of the first. Steamboat tied it in the bottom of the third and went ahead with two more runs in the fifth.
The Sailors added one more run in the sixth to make the final score a three-run difference.
Delta finished the game with five hits, all singles from five different players. The runs scored by Chad Fedler and Jordan Sandoval in the first inning were the only ones the Panthers could manage. Spahr and Yost had two hits each for Steamboat's offensive production.
Delta 7, SS 1
Game two started in a slow fashion with the Panthers scoring the game's first run in the second after a leadoff single by Chris Lopez. Lopez's single in the third led to another run for Delta and a 2-0 lead.
Isaiah Kathrein's leadoff single in the fourth led to Delta's third run.
Neither team scored in the fifth after Delta sent six batters, and Steamboat five to the plate in the inning.
Delta used the right bats in the sixth as they scored four runs on three hits and one Sailor error.
Winning pitcher, Jordan Sandoval, allowed one run after issuing a leadoff walk and two hits. Only five hits were given up by Sandoval while the Panthers had nine hits, including Jordan Sandoval's four-for-four performance at the plate.
Delta is 3-2 in league play and 6-4 overall after last week's games. Palisade is 7-1 overall and Eagle Valley 5-1.
The Panthers take on Glenwood Springs in doubleheader action this Saturday, April 7, with games beginning at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. A Tuesday, April 10 game is scheduled in Durango with a start time of 1 p.m.
