{"id":110066,"date":"2015-08-24T21:27:28","date_gmt":"2015-08-25T03:27:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/softball-preview-m-chs-softball-team-has-new-coach-new-players\/"},"modified":"2015-08-24T21:27:28","modified_gmt":"2015-08-25T03:27:28","slug":"softball-preview-m-chs-softball-team-has-new-coach-new-players","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/softball-preview-m-chs-softball-team-has-new-coach-new-players\/","title":{"rendered":"Softball Preview M-CHS softball team has new coach, new players"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=3ef60c3d-79bf-4377-91e8-b5e3392877d0&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" srcset=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=3ef60c3d-79bf-4377-91e8-b5e3392877d0&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=800 800w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=3ef60c3d-79bf-4377-91e8-b5e3392877d0&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1200 1200w, https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=3ef60c3d-79bf-4377-91e8-b5e3392877d0&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=1800 1800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 2000px\" width=\"1936\" height=\"1677\" alt=\"The Montezuma-Cortez High School softball pitchers warm up for practice at Englehart Field.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">The Montezuma-Cortez High School softball pitchers warm up for practice at Englehart Field.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">Sam Green\/Cortez Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Angelo Topaha takes over as head coach, after serving as an assistant for the previous two years.<\/p>\n<p>Assistant coach Jason Higgins and assistants and junior varsity coaches Jolicia Blackhorse and Rochelle Blackhorse will join him.<\/p>\n<p>The Panthers also have a number of new players.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve got 30-plus out,\u201d said Topaha. \u201cAnd a majority of them are freshmen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The Panthers lost Brenna Leonard and Makayla Merz to graduation, but they return six seniors.<\/p>\n<p>After a 7-14 season last year that included a regional appearance, the Panthers will lean on seniors with experience.<\/p>\n<p>Leading the seniors will be Tayla Topaha, who was named to the all-conference second-team last year after leading the team in batting average (.520), runs-batted-in (29) and home runs (7).<\/p>\n<p>Also back for a final season are Abriana Conklin, Kitty Wallace, Wesley Kirks, Shavargus Noyes and Stevee Brenner.<\/p>\n<p>The Panthers started practice on Monday, and with over 30 players to evaluate, Topaha has yet to determine positions.<\/p>\n<p>Topaha and his staff will spend the next week learning the players\u2019 skills in order to create a lineup for the Panthers\u2019 first game next Saturday, August 29 at home against Cedaredge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Montezuma-Cortez High School softball pitchers warm up for practice at Englehart Field.Sam Green\/Cortez Journal Angelo Topaha takes over as head coach, after serving as an assistant for the previous two years. Assistant coach Jason Higgins and assistants and junior varsity coaches Jolicia Blackhorse and Rochelle Blackhorse will join him. The Panthers also have a [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":110067,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5770],"tags":[21],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-110066","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-high-school-sports","tag-cortez"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110066","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110066"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110066\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110067"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110066"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110066"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110066"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=110066"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}