When the Colorado girls’ hoops GOAT takes over your program, significant outcomes are bound to happen.
For Kent Denver, that they have.
Under the direction of head coach Ann Abromaitis (née Strother), a former Highlands Ranch star who won two national championships at UConn before playing professionally, the Sun Devils are headed to their first state title game.
In Abromaitis’ first two seasons, Kent Denver lost in the Sweet 16, but the Sun Devils broke through to a deep playoff run this year. They beat Timnath 53-46 on Friday in the Class 4A Final Four at the Denver Coliseum, avenging a narrow loss in the season opener on Dec. 2.
“I think we were all (a little starstruck) when she got hired,” said Kent Denver senior post Austin Duncan, a Washburn commit. “Knowing where she’s been and what she’s done, we thought good things were going to come of it — and here we are.
“She runs with us all the time (in practice). There’s dimes all over when she plays — behind-the-back passing, and she can shoot the ball from anywhere still. She’s still got it, and that rubs off on us.”
Coupled with the Kent Denver boys also beating Timnath in Friday’s Final Four, the Sun Devils join Class 5A Lutheran in going for a rare championship double-dip on Saturday at the Coliseum.
The Kent Denver girls were led by 15 points and 8 rebounds from Duncan, their senior stalwart on a team heavy in youth. The Sun Devils start three freshmen in point guard Elise Drogin-Tundermann, guard Emerson Hamman and forward London Barry. But that trio played beyond their years, with Drogin-Tundermann dropping 14 points and Barry adding 9.
“We have just the right combo — some young players who don’t know any better, who have never been here on a stage like this,” Abromaitis said. “They’ve worked hard and put in the time for this and know how compete. Then we’ve also got a senior leader (Duncan) who doesn’t want to go out. That’s a pretty good recipe.”
As a player, Abromaitis has experience at the Coliseum, and she won a pair of Class 5A titles (then the biggest classification) with Highlands Ranch as a junior and senior.
In her senior year in 2001-02, the CHSAA Hall of Famer was named the one of only two Colorado females to earn that honor, along with ThunderRidge’s Abby Bartolotta (née Waner), who earned it in 2005. Abromaitis says she’s had conversations with this year’s team about competing at the Coliseum, which is notoriously unfriendly to shooters.
“I remember what it felt like to be here, and I’ve talked about that with them,” Abromaitis said. “I know we’re probably going to come out, shoot a couple airballs, get those nerves out. We’ve just got to play through it, work through it, and they really did that to win Wednesday (in a Great 8 matchup against D’Evelyn) and then again against Timnath.”
The Sun Devils led for the majority of the game against the Cubs, and used an early 8-0 run to create separation plus strong 3-point shooting (9-for-19) to cement the win.
‘Run Devils’
In the boys game, the game started the opposite way, with top-seeded Kent Denver quickly going down 8-0. But the Sun Devils ripped off a 15-2 run in the second quarter to reassert control, then didn’t step off the gas en route to an 82-72 victory.
Senior guard Sam Glynn paced Kent Denver with 23 points, while sophomore forward Henry Czaja added 19 points and star senior guard Caleb Fay (an Air Force commit) also showed up in critical moments despite dealing with some foul trouble. Fay finished with 15 points, and junior guard Liam Ash had 14.
A 13-2 run in the fourth quarter all but put the game on ice for Kent Denver, as the Cubs failed to match the Sun Devils’ depth and also had issues with Kent Denver’s ball pressure. Even when Timnath made a run late in the fourth quarter, Kent Denver was unfazed.
The team still has the same “Run Devils” identity of a season ago, even though they lost four starters to graduation.
“Everyone talks about Caleb, which they should, but itap not a one-man show,” 33rd-year head coach Todd Schayes said. “No one worries about who scores. We play fast, we sub a lot. I really think we can be as many as 16 deep.”
The Sun Devil boys have only lost to Class 6A opponents this season, with defeats to Northfield, Fruita Monument and Eaglecrest. Like the girls, a stacked schedule prepared them for the tense moments at the Coliseum as the boys are now one win away from a repeat championship following a dominant run through the tournament in 2025.
Schayes, who has taught sixth-grade history and English at Kent Denver for over three decades alongside his coaching career, notes that Abromaitis’s “fantastic coaching” enabled the girls’ program to catch up with the boys.
“She can’t be (longtime, intense UConn coach) Geno (Auriemma) — she found that out that first year,” Schayes said with a laugh. “So over the last two years, itap been less Geno’s coaching style and more her’s. She’s smiling more. The girls have bought in, and the moment is never too big for them.
“Her players and my players are each other’s biggest cheerleaders. We are screaming for them, they are screaming for us. I’m so happy for them and itap a phenomenal thing for our community to have both teams playing for the title.”
The girls take on Holy Family in Saturday’s championship at the Coliseum, while the boys play University.
