The newest region to join our Colorado Preps Weekly series is the San Luis Valley. Caleb Burggraaf will provide a weekly update on teams, coaches and players in that region. It will be published each Tuesday on the Coloradopreps.com website.
Our weekly column is presented by Stone Farm Supply in Center and State Farm Insurance Agent Torben Walters in Alamosa.
Football
It wasn’t the cleanest of games for the Sanford Indians, as the top ranked team in 8 man football seemed to win going away on the road at Simla 74-50, but the Cubs gave them a scare, leading the game after three quarters 44-34.
This wasn’t the first time Sanford faced a deficit against a tough team, falling behind Dayspring Christian in their matchup a week earlier, and the experience of not panicking when trailing paid off for the Indians as they improved to 3-0 on the season.
The games highlight was a 9 touchdown performance by 8 man Player of the Year candidate Kelton Gartrell, who tied a national record with the feat.
The Alamosa Mean Moose won their second straight contest of the season, thumping the La Junta Tigers at a neutral site game in Pueblo 42-6.
The Moose were led by Kasey Jones on offense, who threw for 4 touchdowns and ran for a fifth. He was confident in finding his brother Kade Jones as a favorite target, hitting him for 6 receptions and 125 of his 256 passing yards.
The Centauri Falcons were a little slow out of the gate against the Pagosa Springs Pirates in their road contest, but they snapped a two game losing streak to the Pirates with the help of two defensive touchdowns and a tsunami of points in the second quarter, starting the running clock with just under 6 minutes remaining in the first half.
Byron Shawcroft threw for three touchdowns, and only had one pass not find a receivers hands, going 8-9 with an interception as his only blemish in the passing game. Mason Claunch also stood out again, scoring twice on the defensive side of the ball with a fumble recovery in the endzone and a 55 yard interception return for a touchdown.
The Center Vikings hit the road to Peyton looking to improve to above 500 on the year, but while the defense was able to stifle the Panthers, holding them to just two touchdowns, the offense struggled to less than 200 yards in the 14-8 loss. Abraham Echauri continues to lead the way for the defense, adding 16 tackles to his total in the game, leading the team with 31 on the season, 26 of which are solo.
The second season in their return to 11 man football continues to be tough on the Tigers of Del Norte, as they fell to 0-3 with a 41-6 loss on the road at Banning Lewis. Del Norte ran for negative yardage on the game, while giving up over 300 to the Stallions. Del Norte’s game this week with Trinidad could be a chance at their first win, as the Miners have given up 40 points of offense in their two contests this season.
Monte Vista was in another tough battle on Friday night that turned into a defensive slugfest as they hosted the North Fork Miners and fell in a 21-0 shutout. The Pirates struggled to move the ball on offense, only amassing 103 total yards, but they continue to look promising on defense as they get ready for the running attack of Platte Canyon this weekend.
The Sargent Farmers showed another promising performance on defense against Las Animas, but despite holding the Trojans to 20 points, only 6 points put up on offense. The Farmers gave up over 200 yards on the ground, with Caden Morlan carrying the ball 26 times for 131 yards for Las Animas.
Mountain Valley was able to bounce back from their loss at home to Cheraw and wound up spoiling the Cotopaxi Pirates homecoming game on Friday night, earning a big 37-25 win to move to 1-0 in league play. Tristan Martinez had a game to remember, carrying the ball 18 times for 246 yards and three scores, and as a team the Indians had 475 yards of total offense.
The next opponent for Mountain Valley is Sierra Grande, who improved to 3-0 on the season and 1-0 in league with a dominant 80-6 win over La Veta. The defense for Sierra Grande picked off the Red Hawks four times, and held them to only 107 yards in the game. Saturday’s game against Mountain Valley could very well be for the league title unless Cotopaxi pulls an upset later in the season.
Volleyball
The Centauri Falcons had a disappointing weekend in Colorado Springs, as they went 0-3 at Coronado, falling to the host Cougars as well as Thompson Valley and Ralston Valley. The Falcons are still 4-4 on the year with the rough week, and now will head into Intermountain League play, taking on Alamosa and Pagosa Springs this week.
The Center Vikings split their time on the court last week, taking a three set sweep of Creede before falling in straight sets to Sargent. The loss snaps a 4 game winning streak, as the Vikings still look solid at 9-2 on the year.
Speaking of Sargent, the Farmers had a long layoff before their match with the Vikings, and used the win to move above .500 on the season and to 2-0 in the Southern Peaks league.
Further south, the Del Norte Tigers had a rough week on the court. After dropping a four set match with Monte Vista, they hit the road and were swept by the Ignacio Bobcats, who have been a force from the San Juan Basin League at 4-1.
Monte Vista had a very busy week of their own, starting with the win over Del Norte, the Pirates would drop a four set match with Buena Vista and then would split four matches in a tough field in Manitou Springs, falling to the host Mustangs and Stargate School while taking down Jefferson Academy and Grand Valley. Their schedule will relax quite a bit, as at 5-5, they will only have three matches the next three weeks.
Sangre de Cristo was able to put a rough run of matches behind them this weekend, as they hosted Swink to the tune of a three set sweep, returning to the win column after a three match losing streak. At 3-4, the Thunderbirds have a stretch of four more home matches to get back on track over the next two weeks.
The Sierra Grande Panthers dropped three matches over the weekend, including a pair to the La Veta Red Hawks and a match to the McClave Cardinals, being swept in all three.
La Veta used their two wins against Sierra Grande to move back to 3-3 on the season, and pushed the 5-0 McClave Cardinals to a 2-1 set loss as their only blemish of the weekend.
Mountain Valley dropped to 0-2 on the season with their loss to Cotopaxi over the weekend.
Softball
The Alamosa Mean Moose were stifled by the Durango Demons, as they dropped a pair of games 11-7 and 18-8. Alamosa drops to 3-7-1 on the season, but remains 1-0 in league competition.
Soccer
It was a rough way to close out the week for the Mean Moose on the pitch, as Alamosa was handed a pair of one goal losses to Gunnison (2-1) and Pagosa Springs (1-0) on Thursday and Saturday respectively. The Moose will take on Taos (NM) and Montezuma Cortez this week as they remain in search of their first win of the season.
Cross Country
The Alamosa Mean Moose also hosted their annual home meet, the Joe Vigil Invitational, and saw Isaac Higareda finish in 8th to lead the boys and had three boys in the top 20 of a very competitive field. Alamosa as a team would take 3rd behind Los Alamos and The Classical Academy. Centauri would finish in 12th, led by Mason Sowards.
On the girls side, Sarah De La Cerda finished 5th to lead the way with Lia Castillo finishing right behind in 7th. Four girls placed in the top 20 to lead the Moose to a second place finish behind Durango. Centauri would finish in 12th on the girls side, paced by Jocelyn Jarvies.
