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.
The Paonia Eagles baseball team defeated Sargent’s Farmers and the Las Animas Trojans at the Region 4 baseball tournament last Saturday in Pueblo. The Eagles (15-5-1) now head to the final four segment of the 2A tournament. They face No. 3 Resurrection Christian Cougars (18-3) Friday at Englewood High School in Denver.
The last time Paonia made the final four in baseball, this year's seven seniors were sophomores. They were blanked in the semifinals by a bigger, more experienced Resurrection Christian Cougar's team.
Resurrection Christian lost to Limon in the championship game.
This Friday, the two, Eagles and Cougars, will once again fight for the chance to play for 2A state championship. As they did in 2010, Paonia will face the boys from private school from Loveland, at Englewood High School. And this year, with seven seniors, Paonia has much better odds of a win.
The Eagles are seeded seventh and earned their way to the semifinals by defeating No. 10 Sargent (12-3), 5-4, in eight innings. They then upset No. 2 Las Animas Trojans, 2-1. Both games were played last Saturday at Andenuccio Field in Pueblo.
In the final game, the Eagles were down 1-0, according to head coach Drew Potter. KC Christian hit a one-out double and Tyler Kendall followed with an RBI triple. Paonia attempted a suicide squeeze and Kendall scored the go-ahead run. "We stopped them in the top of the seventh to take the 2-1 win."
Several players, including Keaton Kropp, Tyler Jackson and Taylor Katzer, had great plays throughout the series, said Potter, and "Derek Heiniger pitched a phenomenal game for all seven innings."
The winners of Friday's game will face either the No. 1 Rye Thunderbolts (20-1), the defending state champions, or No. 5 Byers (13-4), the defending runners-up, in the championship game, beginning at 3:30 p.m. Saturday, at Englewood High School.
