Boys volleyball: Discovery Canyon claims first state championship

AURORA – It’s hard to imagine a better start than what the Discovery Canyon boys volleyball team accomplished in its first season as a program.

On the way to the team’s first state championship, the Thunder rolled through the entire the 2022 campaign without losing a single set to dominate the Colorado High School Activities Association’s second-ever sanctioned boys volleyball season. On Saturday at Overland High School, the fourth-seeded Thunder capped its incredible run with a 25-21, 25-22, 25-20 victory over No. 1 Cherry Creek in the championship match.

Perfection.

“This has been a culminating day for us for four or five years now,” Discovery Canyon senior Caden Zippwald said. “Most of our team has been playing together since eighth grade, so we all know each other, we’ve all been playing together. But this was the first time that all of us have been able to play together with boys volleyball as a sanctioned sport. We put in the work at practice, we all love each other and I think today was just the culminating day for all of that.

“It’s super special for all of us.”

The first set of Saturday’s final was tied 11 times, including a late stalemate at 19-19 before the unbeaten Thunder (27-0) finished on a 6-2 run to close it out. In the second set, there were nine tied before Discovery Canyon rode a mid-set run to outscore Cherry Creek, 16-11, down the stretch. The third set was tied 12-12 before Discovery Canyon gained some separation with a 5-0 run and outscored Cherry Creek, 13-8, in the second half of the set to finish the match.

“I was lucky enough this first year to be blessed with great players and I keep telling people I was dealt a full house right off the bat with the players that I got,” Thunder head coach Wayne Weatherby said. “You couldn’t ask for a better group of boys. They worked hard all season for this and this weekend they continued to surprise me even more. I knew we would be good, but I also knew we were going to be playing the best teams in the state.

“We knew it was going to be a battle all three days and to come through and win in straight sets every day, I was very proud of the boys and the work they put in to get to this point. We worked hard all season on not letting teams back into matches because we knew we weren’t going to get away with it at state. They did a great job of seizing control of every match and not letting it go.”

In order reach the finals without a loss on Saturday, the Thunder swept No. 6 Legend, 25-21, 25-21, 25-15, in the championship semifinal. After losing in the championship quarterfinals on Friday, howver, Cherry Creek had to take the long road back through the consolation bracket to reach the finals.

That journey began with a 26-24, 25-16, 25-18 win over No. 2 Bear Creek in the consolation quarterfinals on Saturday morning followed by a 25-22, 26-24, 15-25, 27-25 win over No. 6 Legend in the consolation semifinals in the early afternoon. It would have taken a third win in a single day for the Bruins to leave Overland as the 2022 state champions.

Defending champion and seventh seed Douglas County was eliminated on Day 1 along with No. 5 Cherokee Trail. No. 3 Eaglecrest and No. 8 Regis Jesuit made it to Day 2 before being eliminated by Cherry Creek and Bear Creek, respectively, in the second consolation round.

At last year’s first state tournament, every match but one ended in a sweep and the outcome of all but one match went according to seed. This year, there were only six sweeps in 14 total matches, and the three top seeds all ended up in the consolation bracket by the end of Day 2.