Injury leaves cougars scrambling at state

Coronado’s Jesse Matthews found himself running in a new place on Saturday at the state cross country championships: Matthews was leading the Cougars’ pack.

All season, he’d followed the footsteps of Coronado’s Dusty Solis, the Metro League and regional champion. But Solis, who was nursing an injured foot, had fallen off the pace. Matthews, a junior, had become the team leader. It was a position he accepted, but he wished Solis had been at the front of the race with him.

“Dusty is a really great guy and just seeing him in pain and not being able to do his best really upset me,” Matthews said.

Matthews finished 22nd with a time of 16 minutes, 37.64 seconds. Coronado’s Dylan Witte was 45th (17:01.44), followed by Dan Egger (81st, 17:28.84), Ryan Mott (85th, 17:32.39, Solis (93rd, 17:38.24), Ryan Logan (98th, 17:42.04), and Schuyler Vandersluis (165th, 18:55.64).

The Cougars placed 12th overall, scoring 326 points. Regis placed five runners among the top 50 to score 116 points and win the state title. Palmer, which placed eighth, was the fastest of the Metro League teams. The Terror’s Andrew Goodman was the quickest of the area runners, finishing ninth with a time of 16:16.19.

“We missed Dusty because he was hurt from regionals,” coach Doug Hugill said.  “We were hoping he’d do well but he couldn’t because his foot was hurt and that hurts us really badly.”
Matthews sensed that his team was struggling.

“I felt like we went out and we did the best we could under the circumstances,” Matthews said.  “I think that the heat got to a lot of people and that it was a very tough course and also seeing our lead runner not doing as well as he could have because he was hurt probably deterred some of the morale.”

With plenty of young, fast feet on the roster, Coronado should be competitive again next year.
“We have a lot of great incoming freshman, a lot of great sophomores,” Matthews said.  “We’re just going to try and buckle down and do our best.  I think if we work hard at it we’ll be pretty good.”

Volleyball: Manitou Springs’ hopes of gaining a berth in the Class 3A State Volleyball Tournament crashed with a loss to Platte Valley on Saturday in regional play at Valley High School. The Mustangs had already lost to Valley, then defeated Platte Canyon (26-24, 20-25, 25-17, 25-19)  Platte Valley proved to be too much as Manitou fell (21-25, 21-25, 25-15, 9-25).

Winter sports: The first competitions of the winter sports season begin Dec. 1 Here is a rundown of the season’s first week.

Dec. 1
Boys basketball: Coronado at Widefield, 7 p.m.
Girls basketball: Widefield at Coronado, 7 p.m.
Manitou Springs at Rye, 7p.m.

Dec. 2
Ice hockey: Coronado vs. Palmer, 8:30 p.m. at Sertich Ice Center
Girls Swimming: Mitchell at Coronado, 4 p.m.

Dec. 3
Boys basketball: Manitou Springs at the Trinidad State Tournament, TBA
Girls basketball: Manitou Springs at Sheridan, 7 p.m.
Wrestling: Manitou Springs at the Colorado Springs School for the Deaf and Blind, 6 p.m.

Dec. 4
Swimming: Manitou Springs vs. St. Mary’s and Salida, 4 p.m. at Harrison High School

Dec 5
Wrestling: Coronado at the Warrior Invitational, 9 a.m. at Arapahoe High School