The Colorado High School Activities Association released the baseball postseason fields for the Class 5A-2A on Wednesday, with 32 teams and eight region sites from each set to play Friday and Saturday.
The winners of each region will then play an eight-team, double-elimination tournament for their respective state title starting next week.
For today, let’s take a quick dive into the 5A and 4A brackets.
Class 5A
Regional hosts (No. 1-8): Fossil Ridge, Regis Jesuit, Castle View, Fruita Monument, Cherry Creek, Rock Canyon, Fort Collins and Prairie View.
Top-ranked Fossil Ridge (22-1) has been the team to beat in the 5A classification for some time now, finishing a perfect 15-0 in the Front Range League.
The Sabercats are led by perhaps the state’s best pitching staff, which owns a 1.69 ERA this spring. Air Force Academy commit Easton Miller, their ace, hasn’t allowed more than two earned runs in any of his 10 appearances on the mound, touting a 1.09 ERA in 51 1/3 frames.
Their offense is stout, too. Owen Morgan has a .507 batting average with 17 extra-base hits and 30 runs driven in.
They kick off play in 5A Region 1 Saturday, hosting No. 16 Grandview, No. 17 Ralston Valley and No. 32 Eaglecrest.
Meanwhile – the lone team to beat Fossil Ridge this year, No. 5 Cherry Creek (18-4-1), is hosting Region 5.
The Bruins beat the Sabercats, 12-9, on April 13, behind five RBIs from senior Eddie Esquivel.
If they hope to survive a four-team field that also includes No. 12 Pine Creek and No. 21 Mountain Vista — a pair of teams it lost to in the regular season — they’ll need more of the same from an offense averaging more than nine runs per game. An explosive lineup is fronted by sluggers Mason Scott (.460 batting average and 28 RBIs) and Connor Larkin (.414, 25 RBIs and six home runs).
Elsewhere – No. 2 Regis Jesuit’s Trevor Nordstrom was the 5A regular season batting champ (.554). No. 7 Fort Collins’ Sean Togher was second (.508). Christian Ramirez had 5A’s most strikeouts, fanning 111 for Adams City, which did not make the postseason. FR’s Miller was second with 100.
Class 4A
Regional hosts (No. 1-8): Windsor, Golden, Pueblo County, Palisade, Holy Family, Falcon, Lewis-Palmer and Thompson Valley.
Windsor (21-2) dropped a pair of games over a five-day span in April — falling 6-4 at No. 18 Silver Creek, then 4-3 against No. 24 Mead — but has been spotless outside of it.
The Wizards swept then-No. 1 Holy Family (16-5-1) in a two-game series late last month to take a stranglehold of the Northern Colorado Athletics Conference, and eventually landed the top seed in 4A.
Ethan Fillinger is a player of the year candidate in Colorado after he led an offense averaging 10 runs per game. The junior is hitting .411 and has the state’s second-most home runs this spring with seven.
Only Evan Raabe of No. 8 Thompson Valley and Asher Hawes of 2A No. 2 Denver Christian have more homers, each with eight.
Windsor hosts No. 16 Discovery Canyon, No. 17 Grand Junction and No. 32 Aurora Central in 4A Region 1, starting Saturday.
Meanwhile – last year’s 4A runner-up, Golden (21-2), is seeded second.
The Demons lost to Severance — seeded 19th this season — for the 4A title a year ago. Then, they just narrowly missed a chance at the top seed in the class this spring, bedeviled by a loss to No. 21 Pueblo Central in March followed by a late-season loss to D’Evelyn, which didn’t make the postseason field.
They’re led by a pitching staff that owns a 1.16 ERA. Sawyer Brinkman has thrown a team-most 42 innings this spring, fanning 74 while allowing just seven earned runs. Behind him, Braeden McCarroll (1.41 ERA in 39 2/3 innings) and Taden Svendsen (0.86 ERA in 32 2/3 IP) have been just as good.
They host No. 15 Lutheran, No. 18 Silver Creek and No. 31 Denver North at Region 2, starting Saturday.
Elsewhere – Rifle’s Logan Gross had a 4A-most 97 strikeouts during the regular season. Coronado star Trey Gregory-Alford, with his triple-digit fastball, was second (88), though in 16 1/3 fewer innings. Logan Rockhold was the 4A batting champ in the regular season, hitting .673 for Sand Creek, which did not qualify for the postseason. Gross was second at .603.
