PUEBLO – Mission accomplished – again.
Forge Christian won its second consecutive Class 2A baseball state championship by muscling past Monte Vista 12-5 Saturday at Hobbs Field at the Runyon Sports Complex.
“I had coached high school baseball for 25 years and I had never won a state championship until last year and winning state is not easy to do,” Forge Christian coach Jim Polson said. “The quality of kids that we have and the culture that we have, we never give in. We just keep putting pressure and do what we do. Whatever it takes.
“We got down by a couple of runs and there was no panic. We came right back up and we put pressure on them. It feels great to do this again.”
The top-seeded Fury finished its memorable season with a 27-2 record. Forge Christian, formerly known as Faith Christian until the fall 2023, has won five baseball state championships in 2007, 2011 and 2016 in 3A and 2025 and 2026 in 2A as Forge Christian.
Denver Christian (2023, 2024) and Forge Christian (2025, 2026) have won the last four 2A state baseball titles and both programs are expected to move to 3A next year.
Monte Vista, which was trying to win the school’s first baseball state championship, finished its season with a 26-2 with both its losses coming against Forge. The Fury edged the Pirates 3-2 in 11 innings in the 2A state semifinals on May 22 at Hobbs Field.
“This is all through the joy of the Lord, that’s where we get our strength each and every day,” senior catcher Sam Buerck said. “Whether it is a tough game, or the best game of your life, that’s where it comes from. In this game, we just had selfless hitting. We strive for quality at-bats and whether that’s a hard-hit ball right to somebody or you get hit-by a pitch to get on base. It is about doing whatever you can to have a quality at-bat and get the next guy up to do some damage.
“This is very cool to be back-to-back state champions.”
On Saturday, Monte Vista came out swinging – literally.
In the top of the first, Monte Vista’s Koby Jiron led off with a double to center field. With one out, Azariah Hurtado crushed a two-run homer over the 342-foot left field fence.
Starting Monte pitcher Koby Jiron, who came into the game with a 7-0 record, unfortunately could not find his groove at all – and the Fury capitalized.
Forge leadoff batter Easton Wilde was hit by the first pitch he saw. Buerck then walked on four straight pitches. That brought up shortstop Ben McLean, who was sporting a .560 batting average, and he smacked a long single to right-center field.
With bases loaded, Carsen Hughes came up and walked on four pitches to bring in Wilde. Jonah Boykin popped out to shortstop – Jiron couldn’t get out of his jam.
The next batter Owen Carlson singled to right field, bringing in two runs to the Fury up 3-2. Ivan Murphy then put a great bunt down the first base line and thanks to aggressive base running Forge Christian plated two runs on the play to go up 5-2.
“Putting down a double squeeze on that at-bat and being able to carry it through was huge,” Polson said.
Forge, which only has three seniors in Buerck, McLean and Easton Wilde kept its offensive going at full throttle in the second inning. Forge stretched its lead to 7-2 when clean-up hitter Carsen Hughes smashed a two-out, two-run homer over the left field fence. That finished the day on the mound for Koby Jiron.
“I thought the ball was going to hit the wall, I didn’t think it would go out,” said Hughes about his second homer of the season. “It was great timing.”
Manny Jiron, Koby’s younger brother, was brought in relief. Boykin singled and stole second. Owen Carlson was at the plate, and he reached on error when he hit the ball back to Manny Jiron, who couldn’t handle it and then Jiron hit the next batter Murphy to load the bases.
Last weekend’s hero for Forge, freshman Jake Stocker stepped in and lofted a three-run double to left, putting the Fury up 10-2 after two frames.
“Our focus was to come out and put our best out there,” Polson said. “I knew we had to bring our best and it worked out.”
With his team on the ropes, Manny Jiron delivered a clutch 3-run homer over the left field fence in the top of the third inning to get the Pirates within 10-5, but the Pirates would get no closer.
With runners on first and second and two outs, Forge lifted starting pitcher Ben Harhager for Stocker.
The first batter Stocker faced was Kelby Mondragon and on his first pitch catcher Buerck threw out Landon Sanchez who was trying to steal third.
In the bottom of the sixth, the Fury added two runs on four hits to extend its lead to 12-5.
McLean, Hughes, Boykin and Murphy had two hits apiece for the Fury. Stocker threw 4.1 innings in relief, allowing no runs, three hits, one walk and he struck out three.
“This feels great to help my team win state,” Stocker said. “his is incredible.”
(Tracy Renck)
