PUEBLO | An annual fixture of the summer — the Colorado High School Coaches Association’s All-State Games — has been canceled officially due to the coronavirus pandemic.
The 64th annual version of the games had been slated for July 14-18 on the campus of Colorado State-Pueblo and the organization had been hopeful given that “so many things have fallen into place and we were hopeful the final pieces would as well,” only to be derailed by new health restrictions and directives from Colorado Gov. Jared Polis’ office.
“Thank you so much to each of you who have been committed and flexible to all of the changes to move forward,” CHSCA said in a statement on its website. “We are confident that together, along with the athletes and their families, the coaches and CSU-Pueblo, we did everything we could to make this happen and we had already completed with everything needed to proceed with the games. We were ready.”
The All-State Games have annually brought together outstanding senior athletes and coaches from schools of all sizes from across Colorado for a variety of athletic and spirit competitions, often with an on-campus stay involved. Typically held in mid-June, the competition had already been moved back because of the coronavirus.
As is typical each year, Aurora was set to be well-represented at the All-State Games.
The largest spectacle of the weekend is the football game, which was set to include four Aurora standouts — Vincent King, Obie Sanni and K’Hari Upshaw from Smoky Hill as well as Vista PEAK’s Gene Sledge Jr. — on the same team.
The boys basketball competition, which had players split among four teams, had four Aurora selections in total in Rangeview’s Christian and Christopher Speller (who were to play together on the Black Team) along with Aurora Central’s Messiah Ford and Grandview’s Lian Ramiro on the Blue Team.
The wrestling competition included the Cherokee Trail trio of Jorge Felix, Brock LaBonde and Gavin Young, while the softball game had Smoky Hill’s BJ Kingsbaker set to be one of the coaches of the Blue Team, which included one of his players in Cameron Lyons. The Red Team had Cherokee Trail’s Cheyenne Ausborn on the roster.
Eaglecrest’s Carley Capra was set to represent Aurora in the spirit competition, which also included two Aurora coaches in Angela Porter of Smoky Hill and Grandview’s Christina Maccarrone.
Courtney Oakes is Sentinel Colorado Sports Editor. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or [email protected] Twitter: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
