Absolutely a perfect start to league play for Golden baseball

GOLDEN — The quest for a 5-peat officially started Tuesday on Golden High School’s baseball field.

The Demons are attempting to win the program’s fifth consecutive Class 4A/3A Jeffco League title. Senior pitcher Sawyer Brinkman got Golden off on the right foot in the conference opener Tuesday throwing a perfect game in a 10-0 (5-inning) victory against Standley Lake.

It might have been the most subdued perfect game celebration in baseball history.

“I wasn’t sure if we had the run rule or not,” Brinkman joked about his casual walk toward the Demons’ dugout after his 12th strikeout for the third out in the top of the fifth inning that ended the game. “I couldn’t remember if it was 12 or 10 runs after five innings.” 

Brinkman had to throw just 59 pitches over the five innings. Of the 15 batters he faced he struck out a dozen with only three outs recorded by Golden’s defense. Golden sophomore catcher Caycen Mead caught a popup in foul territory in the top of the fourth inning. 

Golden senior shortstop Jaydon Stroup made the other two defensive plays. Stroup’s fielded a groundout by Standley Lake sophomore Titus Schrecengost to leadoff the game, but it wasn’t a routine play as Stroup’s throw had to be scooped by first baseman Charlie Thompson.

“As soon as a let that ball go on that first out that kind of scared me a little bit,” Stroup admitted on the ground ball by Schrecengost. “It was a good play by Charlie.”

For a split second it looked like Standley Lake junior Keyvon Ferrin had ended the perfect game and no-hit bid with one out in the fifth inning. Ferrin ripped a line-drive, but it was right at Stroup for the second out.

“He (Ferrin) hit it hard enough that I didn’t really have time to think,” Brinkman said of the hardest hit ball by the Gators (6-8, 0-1 in league) on the day. “I was just really happy Jaydon was there. The last guy, I just wanted to make it interesting.”

Brinkman was in danger of walking senior Eric Baumer with two outs in the fifth, but the Dodge City Community College commit battled back to strike out Baumer to end the game.

“It is pretty cool,” Stroup said being apart of the perfect game. “Sawyer threw a gem. He threw a lot of strikes. He punched out a lot of guys.”

Brinkman has a 5-0 record and 1.36 ERA through 36 innings pitched so far this season.

“Honestly, I felt really good,” Brinkman said of his first career perfect game. “We had a pretty long break since our last game, especially with the weather over the weekend. I had some time to get my arm back into shape and recovered. This was a good sign of what is yet to come in league.”

Offensively, Golden (11-3, 1-0) put up eight runs in the bottom of the first inning. The Demons took advantage of four walks and four hit batters to send 14 to the plate. The big blow was a 3-run double by Stroup to push the lead to 8-0.

“We don’t want to get some runners on base and then help a pitcher out by swinging at bad pitches,” Stroup said. “I thought we did a good job of being patient.”

Sophomores Anthony Boucher and Liam Leffert had RBI hits for the Demons in the third inning to push the lead to 10-0 in Golden’s sixth straight win.

“We’ve had a lot of success over the past four years,” Golden coach Jackie McBroom said of conference play starting up. “We been very intentional about making sure we get off to a good start in league again this year too.”

Golden has a chance to make history this season. Dating back to 1960, the only Jeffco baseball program that has captured five straight conference titles was Arvada West. The Wildcats won five consecutive league titles from 1992 to 1996.

Fittingly, Chad Sigg — Golden assistant coach — was on the majority of those A-West teams that featured Major League Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher Roy Halladay. Sigg was the Wildcats’ catcher and graduated in 1995.

“That would be impressive. Hopefully that works out for us, but that isn’t what we are thinking about,” McBroom said when he was made aware of being able to match A-West’s league title run from over 30 years ago. “We are thinking about Littleton on Thursday. We just want to go one game at a time and play our kind of baseball.”

McBroom talks about ‘checklists’ during the season that includes winning league and making a run in the playoffs. Golden has qualified for the 4A state tournament the past three years. The Demons were the state runner-up in 2023 and advanced to the Final 4 in 2024.

“Honestly, it would mean a lot,” Brinkman said of the Demons chasing another league title. “This group of seniors have been together for five to six years. To come in and win our fourth one to keep this legacy going really means a lot.”

Golden has a busy week with three games in three days starting with at league game at Littleton at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, April 24.

“Every team is going to come ready to play us,” Stroup said. “We have to be ready to play everybody.”