{"id":33718,"date":"2023-05-29T16:14:45","date_gmt":"2023-05-29T22:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-ends-historic-baseball-season-with-a-loss-in-state-tournament\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:12:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:12:53","slug":"montezuma-cortez-ends-historic-baseball-season-with-a-loss-in-state-tournament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/montezuma-cortez-ends-historic-baseball-season-with-a-loss-in-state-tournament\/","title":{"rendered":"Montezuma-Cortez ends historic baseball season with a loss in state tournament"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Senior
Senior Braden Hallman hits another double to add on to the scoring (Courtesy Jerry Cohoe)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The dream season might have ended a few innings too soon, but when the Montezuma-Cortez baseball team and its 10 seniors look back on the 2023 spring, it\u2019ll be trove of incredible memories from a historic performance.<\/p>\n

M-CHS capped an unforgettable season with a loss to Delta in the 3A state tournament\u2019s consolation bracket, but not before the Panthers had placed their body of work among the best seasons in program history.<\/p>\n

Five seniors took their final at-bats for the orange-and-black in their 13-3 defeat, as M-CHS finished one win away from making it to the championship weekend over June 2-3 in Greeley.<\/p>\n

Instead, a team that endured many delays at the beginning of the season because of snow, then rain and hail battled through countless program bests \u2013 including a 22-win plateau and an elusive Intermountain League title.<\/p>\n

In their loss the Delta, the Panthers received a curtain call performance from All-Stater Braden Hallman, who drove in two of the three Panthers\u2019 runs.<\/p>\n

Delta struck with five runs in the top of the first inning, and kept M-CHS at bay for most of the afternoon to advance in the consolation bracket. They, along with No. 1 Eaton, No. 2 University, and No. 11 Colorado Academy, are still in the hunt for the state title.<\/p>\n

M-CHS responded with two runs in the bottom of the first inning, but Delta steadily pulled away with runs in five of the six innings.<\/p>\n

For sixth-year head coach Tim Passell, the team\u2019s growth was a perfect storm of developing leadership, an influx of underclassmen talent, and tremendous development in all phases of the game. The Panthers hadn\u2019t enjoyed a winning season in decades, but made that a moot point by midseason, as they developed one of the most feared lineups on the Western Slope, regardless of classification.<\/p>\n

All the while, M-CHS played with a fire and enjoyment of the game that made their games must-see entertainment for the community, who turned out in droves to cheer the Panthers to their league and regional titles.<\/p>\n

Now, as the Panthers head to the offseason, the bar has been set for the rising leaders of the team, with M-CHS looking to ensure that the 2023 season is a sign of things to come for the future.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Panthers out of state tournament<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33719,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,36,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-33718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33718","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=33718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82317,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33718\/revisions\/82317"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33718"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=33718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}