AURORA | City teams and athletes won a combined four team championships and 12 individual events in the final weeks of the 2016 spring prep sports season. Here’s a look at one of Aurora’s state team champions, the Cherokee Trail baseball team, the Class 5A state champion:
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter: @aurorasports. FB: Aurora Prep Sentinel
CHEROKEE TRAIL: 5A BASEBALL STATE CHAMPION
The Cherokee Trail baseball team put the exclamation point on Aurora’s fantastic spring season by becoming the first city program to win the Class 5A state baseball championship since Regis Jesuit in 2011. In its first trip to the 5A Championship Series since that same season (2011), coach Allan Dyer’s Cherokee Trail team posted a 3-0 record on the opening week of the tournament and finished it off with a 9-4 victory over Rocky Mountain — after suffering its first loss in the double-elimination tournament to the Lobos — on May 29 at All-City Field. The Cougars (22-5 overall) finished 5-1 in the tournament ended up with the program’s first 5A state championship and second overall, joining the 4A trophy it collected in 2007.
Dyer’s team lost a 1-0 decision to Pine Creek in last season’s district championship game to fall short of making the Championship Series, stoking the team’s determination to make it this season with largely the same roster. Cherokee Trail navigated an uneven regular season due to Colorado’s wet spring weather — which caused them to miss a Spring Break trip to play in Arizona — and a back loaded schedule to finish atop the Centennial League standings, then pull off an upset of Heritage (due to a poor standing in the RPI rankings) to make it into the final eight, which also included three other of its league teams in Grandview, Cherry Creek and Mullen.
Cherokee Trail posted wins over Dakota Ridge, Rocky Mountain and Cherry Creek on the opening weekend of the tournament to put itself in the optimal spot, then got a second strong outing on the mound from senior left-hander Keven MacKintosh (2-0 with a save in 14 1/3 innings of work in the Championship Series) to beat Mullen on May 28 and enter the final day unbeaten. The Cougars needed that extra life when they were shut out for the first time all season in a 2-0 loss to Rocky Mountain, despite an excellent two-hitter thrown by junior lefty Conner Nantkes (who threw a complete game to beat Heritage to help Cherokee Trail get to the Championship Series and then allowed just two earned runs in 13 innings in the final tournament).
Senior southpaw Jerome Bohannon took the ball for Cherokee Trail in the final game and surrendered three runs in the first two innings — as he adjusted to a mound at All-City Field that he thought was flat — but allowed only one more to the Lobos in the last five innings. The Cougars’ offense finally took off after junior Eric Cox’s massive two-run home run in the third inning. Senior John-Michael Osley put Cherokee Trail in front for good with a two-run double in the fourth and Bohannon knocked in a pair of runs to help himself. Cox, Bohannon, Osley (who had another RBI double later) and Ryan Sullivan had two hits apiece in the Cougars’ 10-hit attack against five different Lobos’ pitchers and nine different players scored a run in the contest. Nearing his pitch count — and with Nantkes warming up in the bullpen just in case — Bohannon (2-0 with four earned runs allowed in 13 2/3 innings of work in the Championship Series) registered a called third strike on the final out to ignite a dog pile.
Cherokee Trail players dumped the water bucket on Dyer in celebration and shared plenty of hugs with retiring assistant coach Chris Leisge, who addressed them before the final game and urged the Cougars to believe in themselves in the finale.
Full Class 5A state baseball championship game recap, here.
Class 5A state baseball championship photo gallery, here.
Final Class 5A state baseball Championship Series results, here.
