1A baseball: Brigden Parker tosses a gem as Holly beats Flatirons Academy for state title
GREELEY — Less than 20 days ago, Holly baseball coach Dayne Eaton made a crucial decision that would greatly shape the ending of his team’s season.
Flatirons Academy was on its way to Holly for a doubleheader and Eaton had to decide whether or not a regular season win was more important than gambling on a pitching matchup for a potential state championship showdown. By the time the decision was made, Eaton had decided that Brigden Parker, the team’s ace, wouldn’t pitch in that regular season doubleheader.
He wanted to save him for state.
The gamble paid off in a big way as Parker threw a complete game shutout and Holly beat the Bison 1-0 to win the program’s second Class 1A state baseball crown and first since 2016.
“Our strength is our depth in pitching,” Eaton said. “So I left (the regular season games) up to those other guys and we were going to save Brigden. The Limon coach (Rocky Rockwell) told me we were on a collision course with them for the state title. Limon beat them by one and beat us by one and both games could have gone either way.”
It was a much bigger gamble considering that Eaton was determined not to throw Parker until the state title game and left the semifinal showdown up to his son, Dakota.
The Wildcats (16-4 overall) helped him out in a big way. Home runs from Parker and Jose Magallanes led the way to a 9-1 win, setting up that showdown between Holly and Flatirons Academy.
That collision course came to a head and right in the middle of it was a pitchers duel. Both Parker and Bison (12-3) starter Trenton Rowan were fantastic throughout the day.
In seven innings, Rowan allowed just four hits and walked one hitter. He struck out 13 batters that he faced. He made just one mistake. He left a pitch over the plate enough that Magallanes blasted it over the left field fence to give the Wildcats a 1-0 lead in the sixth inning.
“He told me it was an inside changeup and he wondered how I got it,” Magallanes said. “He was really confused with how I got it.”
It didn’t matter. A 1-0 lead with the way Rowan and Parker were throwing might as well have been a 10-0 lead. When he saw the ball disappear over the fence, Parker accepted the challenge of finishing the game with a one-run lead.
“I knew it was up to me to shut it down,” Parker said. “Once he hit that, I knew. We got this one.”
His pitch count was creeping up there and his goal was to finish the game. Evan Moll reached base on a throwing error by Parker, but he responded by striking out the next two hitters with a combined 10 pitches.
He needed just one pitch to induce a groundout from Blake Swearingen that gave the Wildcats the state title. He finished the day with 13 strikeouts and worked ahead of hitters very often. Of the 26 batters he faced, he threw 19 first pitch strikes. Overall, he can’t remember a better performance he’s ever had on the mound.
“That has to be No. 1,” he said.
And it all goes back to that June 5 decision from Eaton. He could’ve thrown Parker that day and given his team a mental edge should they play each other for state. But he decided he would save Parker’s best performance for the last game of the year.
