BASEBALL
JEFFERSON COUNTY
Regular season a league series
It probably will happen every couple of days until the end of the month. Unless we’re seeing things, Class 5A Jefferson County should have an unusually high number of must-see games because members did little in nonleague rounds to suggest otherwise. Today’s after-school specials will have Dakota Ridge (T.J. Berge) hosting Arvada West and Green Mountain at home against Bear Creek. Plus, the 4A Skyline should be lit with Cherokee Trail at Brighton. On Saturday, a 5A Centennial regular on the big-game circuit, Cherry Creek at Grandview, will be played at 11 a.m., and those two parochial big-school rivals, Mullen and Regis, will play a nonleaguer at the best yard in at least 1,000 miles in any direction, Coors Field, at noon.
BASKETBALL
THE SHOW
Finale at the hoop
Yes, the game still lives with perhaps the most-active offseason of any of the state’s 21 sanctioned sports. At the Pepsi Center, the Nuggets’ annual all-star games Friday will have schoolgirls tipping off at 3:30 p.m. and boys at 5 p.m. Twenty players in each game regardless of classification and year in school will say a final goodbye to the 2006-07 season.
TRACK & FIELD
WEEKEND MEETS
Time to turn it on
Now it will begin to turn serious. Runners, jumpers and throwers have about five weeks to dazzle us on the regular circuit that will be highlighted Saturdays in a series of larger meets. A good one to begin with will be the Pikes Peak gathering at Garry Berry Stadium in Colorado Springs that also will draw from the Denver area. Other notable stops will be at Elbert, Englewood, Grand Junction, Holy Family and Windsor.
SOCCER
CLASS 5A-3A
Match points
Ralston Valley at D’Evelyn, 6 p.m. today, at Lakewood Memorial Field is a Jeffco girls match with ramifications that extend well into 4A. Likewise in the 3A Metropolitan for Faith Christian at Colorado Academy, 4 p.m. today, and in 5A for Mountain Vista at Cherry Creek on Saturday, 4:15 p.m., a nonleaguer. All three matches should show off their respective classifications’ depth.
TENNIS
WESTERN SLOPE INVITE
Mountain netting
It will be girls tennis with an altitude Friday and Saturday, when one of the few larger gatherings in the regular season will include a mix of 5A-4A. The Western Slope Invitational in Grand Junction will have the likes of Chatfield, Central (G.J.), Cherry Creek, Durango, Fairview and Steamboat Springs in midafternoon finals Saturday.
