Berthoud Weekly Surveyor | Covering all the angles in the Garden Spot

Spring sports wrap-up

May 26, 2017 | Community News

By Dan Karpiel
The Surveyor
The spring sports season, the third and final leg of the year in high school sports, sees seven teams compete across six different sports. Berthoud High School (BHS) fields teams in baseball, girls golf, girls soccer, girls tennis and both boys and girls track and field. Additionally, several Berthoud student-athletes compete in the pool for the Thompson Valley High swimming and diving team.
Below is a wrap-up of results this spring sports season and well as our picks for the Berthoud Weekly Surveyor’s players of the year in each sport.
Baseball: After having spent years as an after-thought in their conference, the BHS baseball team has assembled back-to-back winning seasons under the leadership of Manager Buddy Kouns. While the Spartan sluggers are yet to achieve their goal of reaching the postseason, Berthoud’s trend is decidedly upward.
Berthoud finished the season with a 10-9 overall record that placed the team fifth in the ultra-tough Tri-Valley Conference (TVC) and just a few tenths of a point in the RPI short of the postseason. Berthoud lost three-straight games, two of which were extra-inning affairs, to TVC rivals Skyline and Holy Family midseason that cost the team a postseason berth.
Even though they came up a hair short of the playoffs, the Spartans enjoyed considerable success. Belmont University (Tenn.) commit Joshua Archer was Berthoud’s ace on the season, pacing the TVC with 79 strikeouts while his 23 hits, .379 batting-average and 14 RBI were all the second-best marks on the team. Colin DeVore proved himself the quintessential leadoff hitter as the junior led Berthoud in virtually every offensive category including hits (25), runs scored (27), batting average (.455), on-base percentage (.600), doubles (seven) and walks (16).
Junior pitcher Chris DeSousa led Berthoud with a 2.05 ERA, the best mark among Berthoud’s regular starters and threw a complete game, one-hit shutout against Frederick late in the year. Junior first baseman C.J. Balliet led Berthoud with 22 RBI and Ben Hardy swiped a team-high 12 bags.
Surveyor Baseball Player of the Year: Joshua Archer
Boys Swimming: While BHS does not field a swimming team, a number of the school’s students swim for the Thompson Valley High swim team. And the big-ticket item of the year was Berthoud senior and Northwestern University commit, Liam Gately.
Gately, who won the state title in the 500-yard freestyle as a sophomore and junior, and placed second as a freshman, won the state title this season in both 100- and 200-yard freestyle events this season and, in so doing, set 4A state records in both events. Gately’s record-breaking performances were a major factor in propelling Thompson Valley to third place at the state meet at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs.
Surveyor Boys Swimmer of the Year: Liam Gately
Girls golf: Entering the 2017 season, the Berthoud girls golf team knew one thing — Molli Boruff would be the team’s number-one golfer. The senior standout qualified for state for the third-straight year, a school record, finishing in 11th place with a 36-hole score of 168.
What provided a delightful surprise was the development and improvement the rest of the team displayed as Berthoud qualified for state as a team for the first time since 2009. Shannyn McEntee, Kyra McDonald and Emma Garner joined Boruff on Berthoud’s state-qualifying varsity foursome. A career-best 88 in the regional meet at Highland Meadows from McDonald to go with a 105 from McEntee gave Berthoud a team score of 278 that secured second place and clinched the team a spot in state. As a team, the Lady Spartans took fifth place with a team score of 558 at the 3A state tournament at the Broadlands in Broomfield, the best finish in the history of the BHS girls golf program.
Surveyor Girls Golfer of the Year: Molli Boruff
Girls soccer: The Lady Spartans soccer team entered spring with almost an entirely different look from last year’s squad. The 2017 season had a new head coach, Kelly Hardegree-Ullman, who replaced 2016 TVC Coach of the Year, Corbett Leatherwood, and was also tasked with replacing 12 seniors who were lost to graduation.
Berthoud finished the year with a 6-9 overall and 2-5 conference records and two players, one a freshman and the other an experienced junior shined for the team. Freshman Maddie Barcewski scored 10 goals and contributed six assists to lead the Lady Spartans with 26 points on the year. Junior Kyley Leatherwood paced Berthoud with 11 goals despite missing three games with a dislocated foot. Both had three-goal hat tricks on their season resume, with Barcewski’s coming on March 11 against Weld Central and Leatherwood’s on April 26 in Berthoud’s 7-0 shutout of TVC rival Roosevelt.
Berthoud’s soccer future appears bright as, in addition to Leatherwood and Barcewski, the Lady Spartans will return juniors Liz Bosnich and defensive standout Savannah Goldsberry, both team captains this spring, as well as Hailey Pepper, Daria Degnan and goalkeeper Morgan Hughes, among many others.
Surveyor Girls Soccer Player of the Year: Kyley Leatherwood
Tennis: Despite a preponderance youth on the roster, the BHS tennis team turned in a strong 2017 season and finished with a winning mark for the first time since 2013. The Lady Spartans finished an even 4-4 in league play and 6-5 overall.
Sophomore Leah Marty, who transitioned from doubles play as a freshman to singles play this season, posted a stellar 8-2 record on the season as Berthoud’s three-singles player. Marty won a pair of matches, the first on March 20 over Windsor’s Brooklyn Kelley and again on April 17 against Julia Ssessanga of Sterling, in extra sets.
Berthoud’s one-doubles team of Delaney Fouts and Riley Lundgreen also posted a winning record on the year, going 5-4, as did the Lady Spartans two-doubles pairing of Emily Casper and Meghan Lucero, who posted a strong 6-2 mark on the season.
Surveyor Tennis Player of the Year: Leah Marty
Track and field: While the relay teams were the story of the year for the BHS track and field team — eight of the 10 qualified for the state meet — a number of individual performances both on the track and in the field made headlines as well.
Leading the way for Berthoud was the stellar performance of triple-jumper Brock Voth. With a jump of 43-3 at the Randall Hess Invitational on April 22, the junior broke the BHS record in the event that had stood since 1972. Freshman Alyssa Bailey also won a conference title with a 16-7 mark in the long-jump. Bailey took ninth and Voth 15th place in their jumps at state.
Sophomore Cailey Archer took first in five meets this season in the high jump, and junior Sam Mulder did it all for Berthoud, taking home All-Conference honors in 100 meter hurdles while also competing in the 300 hurdles and on several relay teams. The boys 4 x 100 meter and 4 x 200 relay teams of Voth, Jack Rafferty, Ryan Schmad and Miguel Sarmiento did work all year long, claiming fourth and fifth place at state.
The best news for Head Coach Colby Schultz is that the vast majority of his track and field team is composed of underclassman and thus will be returning next season.
Surveyor Girls Track and Field Athlete of the Year: Sam Mulder
Surveyor Boys Track and Field Athlete of the Year: Brock Voth

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