{"id":31153,"date":"2023-10-15T18:00:02","date_gmt":"2023-10-16T00:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/m-chs-softball-falls-just-short-of-state-berth\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:35:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:35:19","slug":"m-chs-softball-falls-just-short-of-state-berth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/m-chs-softball-falls-just-short-of-state-berth\/","title":{"rendered":"M-CHS softball falls just short of state berth"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Montezuma-Cortez
Montezuma-Cortez pitcher Devyn Cornett winds up and delivers a pitch on Tuesday while playing Durango. Cornett pitched a complete and also had five RBIs in the win. (Cody Olivas\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

WESTMINSTER \u2013 Once the bats got going in the regional tournament matchup with Fort Lupton, the Montezuma-Cortez offense could sense an upset in the making.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately for the feisty Panthers, the rally ran out of innings, as the No. 11 Blue Devils held on for a 9-6 victory Saturday, leaving M-CHS one game shy of another 3A state tournament appearance.<\/p>\n

In what has become an annual rite for the Panthers, their regional appearance positioned the Panthers with a win-and-in scenario in their bout against the Frontier League champions. With a surging offense that scored 49 runs over their final four regular season contests, the Panthers hoped to outslug Fort Lupton in their contest at The Academy in Westminster.<\/p>\n

An early run from the Blue Devils, followed by three in the third inning placed the Panthers in a deepening hole. The Panthers were held in check for the opening five innings, and found themselves behind 5-0 with only two innings to play.<\/p>\n

With their backs to the wall, M-CHS (11-13) responded with a big sixth inning, pushing across four runs to close the gap to one.<\/p>\n

Fort Lupton (18-6-1) answered with a big inning of their own \u2013 posting a four-spot in the bottom of the sixth \u2013 to rebuild the five-run edge.<\/p>\n

The Panthers weren\u2019t done, though, tallying twice more in their final at-bat, but unable to complete the comeback before the final out. Fort Lupton assured themselves a spot in the 3A field of 16 that advances to the Aurora Sports Complex on Oct. 20-21.<\/p>\n

Eight Panthers collected base hits, including four freshmen who made their maiden appearance in the high school postseason. Juniors Kenzie Whipple and Devyn Cornett enjoyed multi-hit days, as both drove in runs while accounting for two of the three Panther extra-base hits.<\/p>\n

Freshman Saylor Martinez belted a two-run home run in the rally, while classmate Hailey Loyd added an RBI single.<\/p>\n

Cornett took to the circle, posting a complete game performance with eight strikeouts against the Blue Devils.<\/p>\n

M-CHS\u2019 lone senior Trenity Tillahash played in her final softball game for the Panthers, capping her best season with the program with a .315 average and 17 runs scored.<\/p>\n

The remainder of the starting nine for head coach Anthony \u201cHippo\u201d Frost were either juniors or freshman, meaning that the Panthers will bring back a group that will be hungry to build on this year\u2019s fourth place finish in the 3A Western Slope League.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

holds off Panthers\u2019 comeback attempt<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25531,"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-31153","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\/31153","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=31153"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81337,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31153\/revisions\/81337"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31153"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=31153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}