Dorsey battles through putting woes for top-3 finish
A top-three finish at Kissing Camels Golf Course against some of the top players in the entire Pikes Peak region is good enough for a lot of golfers.
But it’s not good enough for Addie Dorsey.
The Manitou Springs sophomore started hot, playing the front 9 in red numbers before cooling off on the back. Still, she shot a 4-over-par 75 at the Coronado Cougar Classic at Kissing Camels against a field of players comprised mostly of Class 4A teams.
There was obvious disappointment in her result, but with the ultimate goal of competing at – and winning – state next month, there are positives to take away.
“Being in a competitive field makes me a better player,” Dorsey said. “It puts me in a more competitive mindset and makes me more ready to play. Not that I did my best today.”
If there was an area of her game where she felt particularly let down, it was her putting. She had a run of four straight bogeys, which started on No. 9, and three of them came on three-putts. And each time, she looked at her putter with the disappointment a parent would give a failing report card. But at the end of the round, she ultimately knew that it was more user error and not the equipment.
“It’s more about trusting myself and trusting the line I have on the ball, instead of second-guessing every putt,” she said. “When you start making bogey, bogey, bogey, you start stressing. I need to make a putt.”
She recovered on the par-5 13th and ran out a string of four straight pars before finishing with two bogeys to end her round.
Unlike previous rounds where she started shaky with a bogey or double-bogey, she made a birdie on No. 1 and played the next three holes at 2-under.
Madison Sharon started her day with a kick-in birdie on the par-3 16th. She made three pars through the course of her round and finished with a 93.
Both girls will be on another tough course on Monday when they head to the Pueblo West Cyclone Invite at Desert Hawk.
Manitou soccer needs to finish scoring chances in late stretch of the season
The Manitou Springs girls soccer team seemingly used its allotment of finishing chances in a 10-0 win over Atlas Prep on April 10.
Five days later the Mustangs had try after try at home against Thomas MacLaren, but up until the last few minutes of the game, those chances weren’t connecting.
The Mustangs eventually beat the Highlanders 4-0, but goals from Elisa Karr and Kara Donegan came in the final five minutes of play.
Freshman Nolan Barrett scored less than a minute into the game and Story Aldridge added one before halftime. It was a fine win for the Mustangs (5-1-2 overall, 1-0 Tri-Peaks), but they’ll have to sharpen up as they welcome undefeated Delta to town on Saturday.
“We don’t know what else to do,” Coach Ben Mack said. “We work on finishing all the time. There are a million things we have to work on, but we’ve spent a ton of time working on striking the ball, finishing patterns of play in the attacking third. That all takes time and that’s the one thing we don’t have.”
The Mustangs are hitting the stretch of the season where they’ll need to be at their best. The regular season ends in two weeks and from there, Manitou and everyone else will have to win or go home for the season.
As of Tuesday night, the Mustangs were sitting at No. 7 in the Class 3A Selection and Seeding Index, the CHSAA metric that constructs the playoff bracket. Delta comes into town at No. 3.
If there is one thing Mack can be comfortable with, it’s that his back line can be strong if an opponent has a solid striker up front. MacLaren’s Sara Christensen caused fits for the back line, which caused Mack to move Barrett from the front into the back which slowed Christensen considerably. But the tradeoff is that there has to be patience as a more limited offensive front finds a way to attack the net.
“That’s a synopsis of where I feel we are,” Mack said. “The comfort level is high because I feel really good about the back end. It’s just now getting those players to have the confidence to break that seal and find the back of the net.”
The capability is certainly there. Brooklynn Sheffield scored three goals in the win over Atlas while Elie Bourgois and Barrett each had two. The Mustangs got goals from four different players in the win over Thomas MacLaren, but they know they left several scoring chances on the field.
“We had quite a few opportunities,” Karr said. “We just need to kind of reset and get back into a good mindset, especially with these upcoming games where we’ll see harder teams.”
The Mustangs are mostly on the road next week before returning home to face Colorado Springs Christian and Fountain Valley to close the regular season.
Mustangs baseball team split first league doubleheader of the year
The bad news for the Manitou Springs baseball team is that it didn’t leave Salida with two league wins.
The good news is the Mustangs didn’t come home with two league losses.
Two tough games resulted in a Tri-Peak doubleheader split as a walk-off error gave the Spartans a 6-5 win in Game 1, while the Mustangs battled back to take Game 2 9-7.
Perhaps one of the most impressive things that coach Brandon DeMatto saw in his team was getting mentally taken out of the second game after such a heartbreaking loss in the first.
“We approached that second one in a way that everyone is pretty happy about,” DeMatto said. “We didn’t sulk, we didn’t pout and we didn’t put ourselves in a position to walk away 0-2.”
In the bottom of the 7th inning in the first game, two Salida hitters reached base on consecutive singles before two errors brought the winning run home. The Mustangs (4-7 overall, 1-1 Tri-Peaks) had fallen behind 5-3 after the 2nd inning but scored a run in the third and fifth to tie the game.
You have to act like you’re the best player out, even if you’re not. – Maxton Bolster
Ben Perkins came up with the RBI double to tie the game. He went 2-for-3 and drove in two runs in that first game.
It was a big 3rd inning where the Mustangs took the lead in the second game. RBI singles from Perkins and Cooper Frojen gave them the lead and a sacrifice fly from Preston Rhodes added some cushion.
But the highlight of the win was the relief pitching performance from Maxton Bolster who took over from Rhodes in the top of the 4th . He allowed just one run over 3 1/3 innings and struck out four Spartans. For a young kid in a tough spot, he performed as well as anyone could have asked for.
“You just need confidence in that situation,” Bolster said. “You have to act like you’re the best player out, even if you’re not. If you can act like it, you can play better in bigger moments.”
The Mustangs will face rival St. Mary’s at home next week before getting back on the road to head to La Junta for another league doubleheader.
The standard is getting raised for Manitou Springs track and field teams
The Manitou Springs track and field teams are starting to strut as they prepare to go into the late-season sprint. The full team made its way to the CSU-Pueblo Thunderbowl to compete at Pueblo West’s Thunder-Storm Invite, and if there was a big takeaway, it’s that the second half of the track season has certainly arrived.
For the girls, school records that had already been broken this season fell again, while the boys got their competitive juices flowing thanks to some top finishes from younger athletes. This performance felt like more than a team ramping up for next month’s state meet. It’s starting to feel like the overall standards and expectation level of this program are starting to elevate.
“Last week was where we, the coaches, started telling the kids that this was the time to get serious,” Coach Anna Mack said. “This is when they’re going to see state qualifications – those top 18 spots – start to trend faster and further. We are no exception to that rule.”
It was just a few weeks ago that Keyaira Moore set the school record in the 3,200-meter run when she finished in 11 minutes, 54.82 seconds.
At CSU-Pueblo, she beat that mark, taking second in the 2-mile at 11:48.34. But more surprising might be that freshman Chloe Bresnahan also topped Moore’s school record as she took fourth in the race at 11:53.03.
It’s not just that the fastest Mustang is getting faster – it’s the entire herd that’s picking up speed. “Last cross country season, all the school records that had been there from the 1990s and 2000s, we broke those,” Bresnahan said. “We’ve just kind of continued that into track by breaking these records together.”
Mackinzy Wall is another example of that. Her discus throw of 126 feet back in March broke a school record that was 16 years old. That mark of 126-0 didn’t even last a month. Wall hit 135-2 in Pueblo to take second overall in the event. It also puts her in the No. 2 spot in all of Class 3A and is nearly 10 feet ahead of Strasburg’s Elizabeth Hightower, who sits at No. 3.
The boys also had a solid day at the Thunder-Storm, notching several top-10 finishes. Jon Polizzi took sixth in the 400 at 54.08. Ethan Traenkle (2:04.47) and Tommy Reed (2:06.34) each finished on the podium in the 800, taking third and sixth, respectively. Both were also on the winning 4×800 relay team, which showed a glimpse of a competitive nature, as Reed competed with Salida kids who were on the basketball team this winter.
“When I see people that have beaten me before, it makes it easier to push yourself in order to beat them,” Reed said.
His twin brother, Mikey, finished fourth in the 1,600 and Weston Cassidy came in sixth in the same race.
Evan Fugate and Yonas Hanson both finished in the top-10 in the 3,200.
The Mustangs are back on the track on Monday when they head to the Huskie Twilight hosted by Douglas County.
STANDOUT MUSTANGS
Story Aldridge (girls soccer): Scored a goal in each of the Mustangs two wins last week.
Ben Perkins (baseball): Went a combined 3-for-4 with two doubles and four RBIs in Manitou’s split doubleheader with Salida.
Mikey Reed: Finished fourth in the 1,600-meter run at the Pueblo West Thunder-Storm Invite on April 12.
