With pitching thin for every team on the second day of the first weekend of the CHSAA Class 5A state baseball tournament, Cherokee Trail’s plan on Saturday at All-City Stadium was simple: Get on base, apply pressure and outscore the opposition.
The Cougars did just that, taking advantage of Regis Jesuit’s miscues in a 10-6 win Saturday that sent Cherokee Trail into its fifth Final Four. Cherokee Trail knocked off second-seeded Legacy and lost to Chaparral on Friday in Lakewood before toppling the top-seeded Raiders to advance to next weekend.
“The job’s not finished,” said second-year coach Jon DiGiorgio, a 2008 Cherokee Trail graduate. “We’ve got to believe even if nobody else does. I told my players, ‘Shock them.’ We had one really poor season in 2019 when we only won six games, then the COVID season (cancellation) in 2020. So it’s been a long grind to let people know we’re here again, back around the top.”
Cherokee Trail won the Class 4A crown in 2007 and 5A title in 2016, the team’s last Final Four appearance.
On Saturday, Andrew Godfrey pitched the Cougars past Regis Jesuit. The junior right-hander tossed six innings, allowing four runs (two earned) while the Raiders’ pitching and defense imploded.
The result was 10 Cougar runs on just four hits. Regis Jesuit issued five walks, plunked five more batters and committed five errors. Cherokee Trail pushed the tempo with five steals.
“We’ve been really good all year about staying patient, seeing a lot of pitches, working a team’s top pitchers,” DiGiorgio said. “When we get on base, we’re a fast team… We moved around out there pretty quick, and ’cause chaos out on the bases’ has been our motto all year.”
All of the 5A Final Four teams were underrated based off their preseason rankings — both Cherokee Trail and Chaparral were unranked, while Legacy was 9th and Broomfield 10th. But the Cougars (20-7, Centennial League champions) feel like they’ve been overlooked.
“A huge motivation is hearing teams saying we weren’t going to be here, and now we shouldn’t be here,” Godfrey said. “That alone gets us in the right mode and ready to go.”
Cherokee Trail will play Legacy for the third time this season Friday at noon at All-City. Right-hander Tyler Wilcox (CSU-Pueblo commit) started against the Lightning in both of the previous games. Legacy won 8-5 on April 9 in Broomfield, but Wilcox bounced back with a two-run, 85-pitch complete game to beat the Lightning on Friday.
“He wanted the ball again against Legacy,” junior catcher Bowen Tabola said. “We were like, ‘Shoot, might as well give it to him.’ And he gave us a complete game. He’s a dawg, and so is Andrew, and they’re both leaders on our team.”
DiGiorgio will have Wilcox, Godfrey and junior right-hander Thomas Munch ready for next weekend, though the Cougars are without left-hander Logan Reid. The sophomore dislocated his shoulder while playing first base in the regional tournament, and is out for the season.
But the Cougars believe they have the lineup depth, and the arms, to win another title.
“We stayed even-keeled the whole game and this whole weekend, and we made sure we stuck to how we played and the fundamentals of the game,” said senior utility Kaelen Bing, a Garden City Community College commit.
Entering next weekend, Broomfield is in the driver’s seat to win its first 5A baseball title and sixth title overall. The Eagles advanced to the championship game with a 20-10 win over Chaparral on Saturday.
Ponderosa’s domination. In the 4A bracket, Ponderosa has blitzed its way into next weekend’s championship game with a chance at a repeat.
After run-ruling their way to the regional title, the Mustangs beat Northfield 14-2 in the tournament opener on Friday. Ponderosa followed that up with a 13-8 win over Cheyenne Mountain in Game 2 and then a 19-0 win over Erie on Saturday. In that demolition, the Mustangs led 11-0 after one inning and finished with six home runs, including two by senior shortstop Dylan Carey, a Nebraska commit.
Erie also advances to the Final Four and will play the winner of D’Evelyn-Cheyenne Mountain, with whoever is left standing between those three teams needing to beat the Mustangs twice for the title.
