LAKEWOOD — The Bruins wrote Marc Johnson a Disney ending.
Cherry Creek won its ninth title under the retiring all-time CHSAA wins leader, beating Regis Jesuit twice on Saturday to claim the Class 5A championship. The Bruins mercy-ruled the Raiders, 11-1, in Game 1 at All-Star Park, then edged Regis Jesuit 5-2 in Game 2 to clinch the crown.
“We knew that our backs were against the wall,” an emotional Johnson said. “But I told my players, there’s no team that I know of in this state that could do it but this one. … I have no idea why everything aligned the way it did, but I’m thankful to God.
“It’s been an awesome run. I loved every second of every day that I coached. I had guys here (from every decade) to cheer us on. They wanted it as badly as we did.”
In front of a standing-room only crowd of about 1,400, Cherry Creek got a gem from junior right-hander Ryan Falke in the decisive game and scored in each of the final three innings to pull away. The nailbiter was no surprise, considering the teams split 3-0 decisions during the regular season and in the tournament semifinal.
Johnson ends his career at 871 wins, with six runner-up showings to go along with his nine state titles, 23 state tournament appearances, 33 league titles and just two losing campaigns in 52 seasons. Along the way, CCHS baseball produced about 450 collegians and over 80 draft picks, including six first-rounders. He also won five state championships in 28 years as the Bruins’ boys soccer head coach, giving him 14 total CHSAA titles.
While Johnson emphasized “I did not want this championship for me,” his players sure did.
“As we got closer to the end of the tournament, we knew how much this meant to him, we saw the emotion,” junior shortstop Sean Goldy said. “When we saw that — when we saw his tears fall before the first game and before the second game, and him stuttering in our meetings in right field — we looked around at each other and said, ‘Okay, let’s go get this.’”
Senior second baseman Brayden Yasuzawa seconded that sentiment, noting “Coach J always says it’s not about him, but this time, it was about him.”
“The pressure today, I would say it was all on Regis,” Yasuzawa said. “We didn’t feel any. We just played our game. Over the season, there was a lot of pressure, and I think that’s why we stumbled a little bit at first because of the expectations that come with having (10) D1 guys on this team.”
After RJHS sophomore right-hander Hudson Alpert threw a seamless first, the Raiders stressed Falke in the bottom of the opening inning. But the Washington State commit worked around traffic, and benefited from a highlight play when Yasuzawa threw out Raiders junior center fielder Christian Lopez at the plate.
“Our defense has been locked down and that’s what we have prided ourselves on all season, and it showed up again today,” Yasuzawa said.
The second inning brought more fireworks. On a safety squeeze by sophomore right fielder Tyce Smith, Mason Scott was out at home on a slick play by the charging third baseman, senior Trevor Nordstrom. An angry Johnson stomped out of the dugout and had some choice words for the home plate umpire.
“I’ve still got the passion,” Johnson said of the exchange. “That will never leave me.”
In the third, Scott saved a run when the Bruins third baseman made a highlight play with two outs on a grounder in the hole, and junior first baseman Connor Larkin made a fantastic stretch to end the inning. Regis Jesuit head coach Matt Darr asked the umpires to review the call, and the out stood.
Creek finally broke the stalemate in the fifth. After Luke Rose reached on an error by Nordstrom, Yasuzawa doubled to deep right-center to score him, making it 1-0. Then Larkin blasted a ground-rule double to push the score to 2-0.
“If we take the lead at one point, I think it’s a totally different game, because then the pressure shifts to them,” Darr said. “But we could never get that run across when we needed to, and then they get two, and suddenly all the momentum was with them.”
Junior first baseman Jace Filleman gave the Raiders life in the bottom of the fifth, blasting a leadoff solo homer to left to cut Regis Jesuit’s deficit to 2-1. But Cherry Creek got the run back the next inning off junior right-hander Luke Reasbeck when Scott doubled and then was singled home by Smith.
The Bruins tacked on more insurance in the seventh when Luke Rose’s leadoff double was followed by Yasuzawa’s bunt down the first base line. Filleman threw the ball away down the line, scoring Rose and making it 4-1, before senior center fielder Eddie Esquivel singled home another run.
Regis scrapped a run across in the bottom of the seventh, but Falke didn’t flinch. His steady combination of high-80s fastballs and an effective changeup sealed the game. He struck out Nordstrom on a high fastball to set off the celebration.
“Our Game 1 performance gave me a bunch of confidence going into my outing,” Falke said. “Last summer I started throwing the changeup more, developing it more, and it turned into a great pitch. With mostly lefties, I get a lot of swing and misses, and I also got a lot of righties today to get out in front, too.”
In the postgame handshake line, the Raiders made it a point to pause and hold their handshake a little longer when each of them got to Johnson. Darr, whose Raiders gifted the 79-year-old a rocking chair when the teams met in the regular season, did the same thing as the coaches shared a moment together.
“I’m heartbroken for my kids, and happy for him,” Darr said. “It’s a really hard mix of emotions, because he’s meant the world to me as a mentor. …. I told him I’d come over next week and sit in the rocking chair and we’d reminisce. Because this is so much bigger than the game.”
Cherry Creek, the Centennial League champions, finished 25-5-1. Regis Jesuit finished 22-8.
Bruins dominate Game 1. After Yasuzawa was hit by a pitch to lead off the first game, Larkin blasted a two-run bomb to left off Raiders senior right-hander Liam Mosley give the Bruins an early 2-0 lead.
“Last game against Regis we didn’t get it started early, and I knew we needed to do that, so I was intent on getting a pitch I could hit in that first at-bat and do some damage,” Larkin said. “I got that on a 3-0 fastball.”
Then in the third, Esquivel’s two-run double to left-center extended the score to 4-0. The next batter, senior DH Will Taylor, hit a liner to center that was dropped, bringing home Esquivel. That chased Mosley from the game to bring on senior right-hander Matteo Momo.
In the bottom of that frame, Regis threatened, but junior catcher Eli Rose hosed one runner at third and then Yasuzawa made a diving play on a soft liner in the hole to keep the Raiders off the board.
In the fourth, Eli Rose’s one-out single was followed by a bunt single by Luke Rose. Then Yasuzawa doubled, making it 6-0. An intentional walk to Larkin followed, and Esquivel made the Raiders pay by clearing the bases with a double. Taylor then made it three doubles in a row, and 10-0, to finish Momo’s day. Senior right-hander Sam Morton came on for Regis Jesuit and stopped the bleeding.
That inning highlighted Creek’s continued small-ball execution in the state tournament, a day after three bunts helped break the game open against Grandview to propel the Bruins into the championship. Creek’s next head coach, assistant head coach Joe Smith, was the one putting down the signals from the third base box. The 35-year-old Ohio native was officially tabbed as Johnson’s successor earlier this week.
“When you talk about high school baseball, it’s hard for kids to focus in practice on bunt defenses,” Smith said. “Halfway through the year, we had that conversation with our kids, and we said we could use this to our advantage. We could play small ball and use that to apply pressure, and that’s what we did in the season’s most important games.”
Cherry Creek loaded the bases with no outs in the fifth, bringing on right-hander William Houtsma. Esquivel’s sacrifice fly pushed the score to 11-0.
All along, Cherry Creek junior right-hander Wyatt Rudden kept the Regis offense from finding any sort of rhythm though the first four frames. The Michigan commit lost his command in the fifth, walking the bases loaded. That led to one run, but Rudden recovered to preserve the 11-1 mercy-rule win. He allowed four hits on 93 pitches.
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