{"id":25167,"date":"2024-10-26T13:45:21","date_gmt":"2024-10-26T19:45:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/panthers-softball-season-ends-in-state-tournament-opener\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T05:11:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:11:19","slug":"panthers-softball-season-ends-in-state-tournament-opener","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/panthers-softball-season-ends-in-state-tournament-opener\/","title":{"rendered":"Panthers softball season ends in state tournament opener"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=8e90b093-6c1f-5e91-97c4-78c2524db86c&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" alt=\"Panther senior Devyn Cornett fires a pitch in a game at Englehart Field this season. Montezuma-Cortez finished the 2024 season in the 3A state tournament. (Photo courtesy of Jerry Cohoe)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Panther senior Devyn Cornett fires a pitch in a game at Englehart Field this season. Montezuma-Cortez finished the 2024 season in the 3A state tournament. (Photo courtesy of Jerry Cohoe)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>Despite seeing its Class 3A state tournament appearance come to an end, the Montezuma-Cortez Panthers softball team walked away from the Aurora Sports Complex on Friday afternoon with plenty to celebrate.<\/p>\n<p>The No. 14 seed Panthers tested one of the top teams in Class 3A, hanging with No. 3 University during the opening innings before ultimately succumbing to a 13-3 loss in Friday\u2019s Round of 16 matchup.<\/p>\n<p>A half-dozen senior Panthers made their final appearances in orange and black, and most of them played in their first-ever state tournament game. After University jumped out to a 7-0 edge through two frames, the Panthers responded with three runs in the top of the third inning.<\/p>\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=fafe056c-fabd-534f-987e-50ede22c7ec8&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"800\" height=\"532\" alt=\"The Panther infield convenes around head coach Anthony \u201cHippo\u201d Frost. Montezuma-Cortez ended the 2024 season in the 3A state tournament. (Photo courtesy of Jerry Cohoe)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">The Panther infield convenes around head coach Anthony \u201cHippo\u201d Frost. Montezuma-Cortez ended the 2024 season in the 3A state tournament. (Photo courtesy of Jerry Cohoe)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>The Panthers had a chance to mount a possible comeback in the bottom half of the third inning, but the Bulldogs answered with a shutout inning to keep Montezuma-Cortez\u2019s rally at bay.<\/p>\n<p>University then beat sixth-seeded Rocky Ford (16-2) and second-seeded Strasburg (15-1) to reach Saturday\u2019s 3A state championship game against top-seeded Eaton.<\/p>\n<p>The Panthers (14-11) won the Western Slope League title and made their first state tournament appearance since 2021.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>No. 3 University outpaces 14th-seeded Montezuma-Cortez on Friday<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,642,36,596,346],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-high-school-sports","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-softball","tag-sports"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25167","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=25167"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25167\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78826,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25167\/revisions\/78826"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25167"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}