It’s time for prep sports to move exclusively indoors, as the winter prep sports season officially opens Dec. 2.
Coming out of the brief Thanksgiving break, boys and girls basketball, girls swimming, wrestling and ice hockey teams begin regular season play for the first three weeks until winter break arrives.
Aurora has three defending team champions coming into the 2013-14 season: the Eaglecrest boys basketball team, the Regis Jesuit girls basketball team and the Regis Jesuit girls swim team, which competes for the first time in four years without Olympic champion and current University of California-Berkeley swimmer Missy Franklin.
Regis Jesuit senior Grant Neal is Aurora’s lone returning state wrestling champion, as he won the 195-pound weight class at last season’s 5A state tournament at Pepsi Center.
The Pepsi Center will again be home to the state wrestling tournament (Feb. 20-22), while the Denver Coliseum (Great 8, March 6-7) and Boulder’s Coors Events Center (Final Four, boys & girls championships, March 13-15) also remain unchanged.
Both the state ice hockey championships and the 5A girls state state swim meet are on the move, however.
The ice hockey Frozen Four — held the past two seasons at Magness Arena at the University of Denver — shift to the Denver Coliseum, with the semifinals slated for Feb. 28 and the state championship game for March 1.
The 5A girls state swim meet moves out from the Edora Pool & Ice Center in Fort Collins — the venue its called home for more than a decade to the Veterans’ Memorial Aquatic Center in Thornton, site of the Coaches Invitational on Dec. 21.
For a preview of Aurora’s 2013-14 ice hockey season, click here, with previews of the other winter sports upcoming in the next few issues of the Aurora Sentinel and online at aurorasentinel.com.
2013-14 WINTER PREP SPORTS SEASON
Regular season opens Dec. 2.
Wrestling: Key dates, information for 2013-14 season
Girls Swimming: Key dates, information for 2013-14 season
Ice Hockey: Key dates, information for 2013-14 season
Courtney Oakes is Sports Editor of the Aurora Sentinel. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter: @aurorasports. Facebook: Aurora Prep Sentinel.
