Stopped short: Erie softball reaches 5A final before falling to Chatfield
Oct. 21—AURORA — Erie was in the clouds. The few, at least, hanging around an otherwise spotless blue sky on the final day of the state softball tournament Saturday.
The Tigers could do no wrong as they charged into the Class 5A championship game at Aurora Sports Park. Though, it's probably what made their sudden unraveling feel that much crueler.
In its second year since moving up to Class 5A, fourth-seeded Erie reached the finals behind strong pitching, and more and more longballs from their heavy-hitting offense, before losing to No. 2 Chatfield, 11-3.
A tournament that'd seemingly crowned a new hero every few hours for the Tigers went belly-up in a 20-minute window. A seven-run fourth inning turned out to be more than enough for the Chargers as they went on to win their first softball title since 1997.
"It's a long two days, like 36 hours," Erie coach Tobin EchoHawk said. "They put so much energy and effort and heart into it and sometimes it gets the best of you and things don't go your way. But super proud of this team. We battled all weekend, and I know we can look at the score in that one inning. But I'm going to look at the whole last two days and all the great things we did."
There'd been plenty to like.
The Tigers (23-6) reached Day 2 with a pair of 6-5 wins Friday, showcasing timely pitching and hitting. Erin Young homered and Gracie Sackett regrouped after giving up a home run to induce a flyout for the final out against Mountain Vista in the opening round. Addie Osborne, the nation's home run leader, followed with her 18th and 19th bombs of the year against Grandview — the most in 5A in at least 14 years, per MaxPreps — and Matix Hull stranded two runners in scoring position to close it out.
Saturday morning, they redeemed their semifinals loss from a year ago with a near faultless 7-0 win over No. 9 Fruita Monument, which beat No. 1 Columbine the round prior. Fourth-year player Gabby Gricius had the first two-homer game of her prep career and Sackett and Hull combined on a three-hitter.
An hour later, they led 1-0 in the finals on Natalynn Lundeen's steal of home. Not much later, though, things went awry.
The Chargers had arguably been the best team in 5A for more than a month, netting wins over 4A No. 1 Holy Family, then-ranked 5A No. 1 Arvada West and defending champ Columbine in September. They proved the most resilient in the two-day tournament, beating Valor Christian in extras in the opening round and finding the go-ahead hit late in a 3-2 semifinals victory over Fossil Ridge.
Ending Erie's run, they got seven runs on five hits, two errors and two walks in the fourth to take a 7-1 lead. Pitcher Karlie Cooledge allowed one earned run to get the win in the circle and she drove in four.
"Before this game, I saw us as equal to them. I mean throughout this tournament, I think we showed that," said Erie catcher Megan Nelson, who was strong behind the plate and had hits in all four tournament games. "But they were just a very good team. We have to give them props for that."
Holy Family and Frederick lost earlier in the day, bowing out in the 4A semifinals.
