Notebook: Chatfield baseball hires coach in February, No. 1 in Wild Card points in April

Pam Wagner

In mid-February, Chatfield sent out a release announcing the hire of baseball coach Brandon Stone.

Stone was up against it. Chatfield’s first game was exactly 30 days away.

Well, Stone’s Chargers are now 11-0, and sit atop Class 5A baseball’s Wild Card points by a sizable margin. Through the weekend’s games, Chatfield has 114.091 points; second-place Regis Jesuit is at 111.364, third-place ThunderRidge has 109.000.

We’re only at the midpoint of the 2014 season, but Chatfield is just two wins away from matching its entire total from all of last season, when the Chargers went 13-10.

Still, that record is somewhat deceiving. Chatfield cruised through the district round to reach the final eight last year (where they went 0-2). Now, they’re carrying the momentum on through to this spring.

Leading the way has been junior Kyle Winkler, who is batting .559 with a team-high 18 RBIs, five doubles and a home run. It’s a dangerous lineup, which features seven players hitting .390 or above, and five kids with double-digit RBIs. The latter group doesn’t even include Blake Moore, who has three home runs.

The staff, led by a trio of seniors, has been good, too. Nick Chamberlain has a 1.33 ERA in a team-high 21 innings pitched. Patrick Barder carries a 2.58 ERA in 19 innings, while Travis Schnoor is at 3.50 in 12 innings.

Chatfield hasn’t won a game in the final eight since 2008. Does that change this year?

Pomona OL commits to CU

Pomona senior-to-be Dillon Middlemiss committed to the University of Colorado on Saturday.

It had apparently been a goal of his since middle school. From his Twitter account:

Throwback to middle school. I set a goal and achieved it. Today I verbally committed to CU #gobuffs #DungeonFamily pic.twitter.com/BB43Ad3wh2

— Dillon Middlemiss (@big__d75) April 12, 2014

He’s the third local football player from the class of 2015 to commit publicly thus far. Pine Creek defensive back Avery Anderson and Valor Christian defensive back Eric Lee have both pledged to Nebraska.

Middlemiss is 6-foot-5 and 275 pounds.

Valor Christian football’s national schedule

Kevin Keyser/KeyserImages.com

Next season, Valor Christian football will play against East High School out of Salt Lake City, Utah, according to NationalHSFootball.com.

East went 13-1 last season, with the lone loss coming in the Class 4A championship game. The Leopards feature senior-to-be Christian Folau, a linebacker who has committed to Stanford.

The two teams will play on Sept. 5 at Valor.

It is the third out-of-state team the Eagles will play next season. They’ll open up at Bonneville, Idaho, on Aug. 22 (Zero Week), before returning home to play Pomona on Aug. 29. The East game is the following week, and then Valor — a five-time defending champion across classes 5A, 4A and 3A — hosts Chandler (Ariz.) on Sept. 12.

Denver East’s Carey gets his own day

Gov. John Hickenlooper and Rep. Angela Williams proclaimed April 10 “Rudy Carey Day” for the Denver East coach.

Here’s a picture our Tom Robinson snapped at the announcement last week:

Tom Robinson/CHSAANow.com

Short stuff:

• Denver East guard Dom Collier was an honorable mention All-American pick by MaxPreps.
• On a related note, Collier’s Angels finished at No. 10 in MaxPreps’ national rankings. It’s the highest finish for a boys team in this state since the ranking started in 2005-06.
• Regis Jesuit’s girls basketball team finished at No. 11 in those same rankings. It, too, is the highest finish ever for a girls team from Colorado. That ranking started in 2005-06, as well.
• Cherry Creek baseball coach Marc Johnson won the 700th game of his career on Wednesday. Friday, the Bruins’ Brian Perry won his 200th as boys lacrosse coach.
• Here’s a quick roundup of recent football coaching hires. Included: Rod Dobbs at Chaparral, Jeff Krumlauf at Doherty, Brian Tinker at Fossil Ridge and Craig Ball at Gilpin County. As always, here’s our football coaching changes tracker.
• Manitou Springs may be the next to fill its vacancy, according to our Dan Mohrmann. The school interviewed candidates on Friday.
• April’s Legislative Council meeting is Thursday. This post will take you through the ins and outs of what will be voted on and discussed. Among the topics are a potential 5A football seeding committee. Find the full agenda, including PDFs of all proposals, here.
• Here’s an interesting take on youth sports from Changing The Game Project, where they examine “an adult driven, hyper competitive race to the top in both academics and athletics that serves the needs of the adults, but rarely the kids.” This culture, they argue, “produces bitter athletes who get hurt, burnout, and quit sports altogether.”