1A Baseball: Flatirons Academy Rallies to Win Title
LAKEWOOD – Sometimes big innings are built with booming extra-base hits, and sometimes they’re carved out with quirky plays and a little assistance.
Flatirons Academy recorded both types of rallies Thursday in posting a 14-11 victory over Akron to win CHSAA’s 1A Baseball State Championship at All-Star Park.
The Bison scored six runs in the top of the first with four of their eight hits going for extra bases before falling behind 11-6 after three. But they scored six more runs to take the lead for good in the fourth inning on three hits (two of them scratch singles), four walks, an error, a wild pitch and an unusual rundown.
“Resilient is the word we’ve been talking about,” Flatirons Academy coach Gino Carbajal said. “Nothing gets us down. And we don’t get too high, either. We play the game, respect the game, and respect the opponent. Akron has an amazing team. They’re always there and they never quit, and we knew that.
“We got down 11-6 and we didn’t press. We knew we had to go to work, make some things happen, and keep chipping away.”
In the fateful fourth, Symon Deichert scored the tying run on a wild pitch and then – with the bases re-loaded on a walk to Caleb Ast – Matteo Pope struck out for the second out. Ast wandered too far off first base and got caught in a rundown, but it was fortuitous. With all the action going on between first and second, Preston Miller scampered home from third with the go-ahead run.
“I was confused, first of all,” Miller said. “My teammates were running back and forth with only two outs. I was like, ‘What’s going on?’ And I just went.”
The comeback was an impressive one for Flatirons Academy considering the similarity to last year’s championship game with Akron, when the Bison scored five in the top of the first but couldn’t hold on.
“It was tough, but I’ll do anything for this team,” winning pitcher Caleb Doughty said. “And it worked out. We just had to push through, and that’s what we did.”
Doughty definitely did his fair share, moving from shortstop to the mound near the end of Akron’s eight-run third inning. Though he allowed an inherited runner plus one of his own to score, he shut the Rams down the rest of the day, and gave up one run on six hits over 4 1/3 innings.
“I just had a variety of pitches that I was using and could land today,” Doughty said. “I tried to keep the batters on their toes.”
Said Carbajal: “That’s why we only used him for two innings in the first game (a 16-1 semifinal victory over Nucla earlier in the day), so that he could be fresh,” Carbajal said.
Flatirons Academy tacked on two insurance runs in the sixth and Doughty worked through the seventh despite twice having the tying run come to the plate. He got one of the outs on his second pickoff of the game at first base. His first pickoff ended Akron’s big third inning.
“You pick runners off, it’s a huge momentum killer,” Carbajal said. “It changes the game. And these kids enjoy doing it.”
After a walk once again brought the tying run to the plate, Doughty was able to get the final out.
“I went out there and he said, ‘I’m not giving you the ball,’” Carbajal said. “And that’s what I wanted to hear. … So I said, ‘Let’s get this last guy then.’”
The win capped a journey for a program that has played on the final day of the 1A season for four consecutive years, with runner-up finishes in 2023 and 2025 to go with a 2024 semifinals appearance.
“It’s amazing,” Doughty said. “Half these kids have been to state every year of high school and we finally got to do it.”
