{"id":22199,"date":"2025-05-18T01:00:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T01:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/greeley-bound-montezuma-cortez-rallies-past-elizabeth-to-win-regional\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:11:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:11:43","slug":"greeley-bound-montezuma-cortez-rallies-past-elizabeth-to-win-regional","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/greeley-bound-montezuma-cortez-rallies-past-elizabeth-to-win-regional\/","title":{"rendered":"Greeley bound! Montezuma-Cortez rallies past Elizabeth to win regional"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Panthers
Panthers senior Seth Oakes follows through on a pitch. Erika Alvero\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

CORTEZ \u2013 A different group might have folded under the pressure after falling behind by four runs in a high-stakes regional title game.<\/p>\n

Not these Panthers.<\/p>\n

Stoked by a lineup full of upperclassmen \u2013 many who had played prominent roles during the last M-CHS foray to the state tournament \u2013 No. 7 M-CHS turned a 5-1 deficit into an 11-6 victory over No. 10 Elizabeth at McAndrew Field in Cortez on Saturday, sparking scenes of jubilation for the hundreds of fans lining the backstop in support of their home team.<\/p>\n

\"M-CHS
M-CHS sophomore Easton Pixler celebrates a home run as he makes it to second base. . Erika Alvero\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A five-run fourth inning for M-CHS flipped the script, before the Panthers tacked on four more runs in the fifth and an additional tally in the sixth. Senior pitcher Seth Oakes threw the final four innings for the Panthers, shutting down the visitors and allowing the M-CHS bats to have their say.<\/p>\n

Junior second baseman Darren Daves sparked the Panthers rally in the fourth inning, as M-CHS (21-4) peppered the ball to all reaches of the outfield on their way to wrestling the momentum away from the Cardinals (19-6).<\/p>\n

The entire starting lineup collected productive at-bats as the parade of Panthers punished Cardinals pitching \u2013 even before the runs started to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just chipped away,\u201d said Panthers first-year head coach Jake Huff, \u201cour boys didn\u2019t have any quit in them today. We hit a lot of balls hard today, and while they weren\u2019t falling in the first few innings, our guys were making great swings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senior Samson Lein, who collected three hits in the regional semifinal, added four more knocks in the regional final win, including a pummeled triple to right center to plate sophomore Jaiden Istenes and give M-CHS some insurance in the seventh.<\/p>\n

\"Montezuma-Cortez
Montezuma-Cortez senior Samson Lein pitches the ball during the Panthers second game of the day against Elizabeth. . Erika Alvero\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Montezuma-Cortez
Montezuma-Cortez senior Samson Lein runs to third base. . Erika Alvero\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Oakes, meanwhile, kept the visitors off balanced with his mix of fastball and curveball, while the infield gobbled up chances. \u201cSeth (Oakes) is one of several leaders on this team, and we were confident that he was going to be able to get it done for us,\u201d said Huff of his senior southpaw.<\/p>\n

\u201cCoach just told me to go out there and do my thing,\u201d said Oakes, \u201cand I want to thank my defense \u2013 they were catching everything.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSeth was hitting his spots extremely well, and that was a big reason why he did so well,\u201d added Carver.<\/p>\n

Panthers first baseman Jaris McDonald corralled everything thrown his way as junior shortstop Cory Carver and the M-CHS defense snuffed out Elizabeth threats in the latter innings.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great when the ball is hit to anyone, and we know they can make the play \u2013 it\u2019s all routine at that point,\u201d said Daves.<\/p>\n

Elizabeth scored four runs in the top half of the first inning, and even though M-CHS was able to scratch one back in their half of the inning, it was clear that the Panthers would have their hands full. The Cards added one more in the third inning against Lein, who started the regional final, before Oakes came on in relief and the entire contest tilted in the Panthers\u2019 favor.<\/p>\n

\"Panthers
Panthers junior Cory Carver makes it safely to third base. Erika Alvero\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"M-CHS
M-CHS pitcher sophomore Connor Rosenbaugh throws the ball to first baseman junior Jaris McDonald to catch an off-base runner from Jefferson Academy. Erika Alvero\/Special to The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cWe were low on energy through the first few innings,\u201d said Carver, \u201cbut once we got that spark from Darren (Daves) got on base, we were able to get rolling from there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sophomore outfielder Michael Krupa tallied a pair of hits, while junior center fielder Parker Conrad drove in two runs.<\/p>\n

The Panthers extend their winning streak to 13 straight \u2013 they haven\u2019t lost in over a month \u2013 and they head to the state tournament with one of the most potent offenses in the classification, having scored at least seven runs in each of those victories.<\/p>\n

In action earlier in the day, M-CHS downed No. 26 Jefferson Academy (6-18) by a 9-3 final, while Elizabeth eliminated No. 23 Liberty Common, 9-1, to advance to the winner-take-all final. M-CHS sophomore Connor Rosenbaugh twirled a completed game gem, shutting out the Jaguars through six innings while striking out 10 batters to collect the win in the opener.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone contributed in some form today \u2013 it was a team effort \u2013 100 percent.\u201d added Huff before Carver chimed in, \u201cWe trust that everyone in the order and on the bench can go out there and get it done.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was awesome to have the support that we did,\u201d said Daves of the massive home support, \u201cit\u2019s really brought the community together.\u201d<\/p>\n

M-CHS will look forward to a trip to Greeley for the second time in three years, as they\u2019ll learn their path to a 3A championship when the double-elimination state tournament bracket is officially released by CHSAA.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Panthers score nine runs in fourth and fifth innings to overturn early deficit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22200,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,39,28,37,36],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-22199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores-high-school","tag-dove-creek-high-school","tag-headlines","tag-mancos-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22199","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=22199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77613,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22199\/revisions\/77613"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22199"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=22199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}