Early in the season, the Chatfield Chargers were 1-8.
Yes, one … and eight.
Yet after long lighting delays at both sites played havoc with the first day of the Class 5A state baseball tournament, the Chargers were one of three 1-0 teams in the eight-team, double-elimination field.
Getting two hits and one RBI apiece from shortstop Kyle Winkler and right fielder Jake Carstensen, the Chargers, the No. 28 seed in the 32-team field for district play, beat Monarch 6-3 on Saturday at All-City Field.
The other two winning teams after the first day were Mountain Vista, which beat Rock Canyon 3-2 and then staged a stirring comeback to defeat Regis Jesuit 11-10 in eight innings at Metro State; and Cherry Creek, which knocked off Grandview 4-1 at All-City Field.
Chatfield was the biggest surprise among the undefeated.
After that horrible start and a rare in-season coaching change, with Matt Johnson taking over, the Chargers were 2-9 before beginning the run that has them in contention for a state title.
The win over Monarch was the Chargers’ 10th in their last 11 games, making them 12-10 for the season.
“At the start of the season, we were surrounded by negativity,” said Winkler, a senior. “It’s been pretty special to turn it around the way we have. … Matt Johnson stepped in as head coach, and he’s kept it pretty positive.”
Johnson was coaching with Chatfield’s Level 3 team before the change.
“I have a really demanding job,” he said. “I manage a large team of software engineers. For me, finding the time to get out here is really difficult. However, I’ve been with a lot of these kids since they were 8 years old, and seeing what they were going through, the coaching staff we have now and I came together and raised our hands.”
Matt Watson went six innings, allowing six hits and three runs for the Chargers in the win over Monarch.
Because of a holdup of more than two hours at All-City during that Monarch-Chatfield game, the scheduled final 5A game of the day, the winners’ bracket matchup between Chatfield and Cherry Creek, was pushed back to 10 a.m. Sunday.
The clincher there was that Granada and Dove Creek, which met at 6 p.m. at All-City in the Class 1A championship game, with Dove Creek winning 8-5, had traveled long distances and some of Granada’s players were scheduled to catch an early Sunday flight out of Denver International Airport for a senior trip. So the 1A game went on, and when it was announced in the late stages of the Chatfield-Monarch game that Cherry Creek wouldn’t be playing the winner until Sunday, the Bruins’ rush out of the All-City Field stands was noticeable.
Cherry Creek’s prom was scheduled for Saturday night.
The 5A tournament continues with six games Sunday.
