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All Local, All The Time
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David Bote drove the second pitch he saw to the wall in right-center for the Chicago Cubs Saturday night at Coors Field, marking his major league debut with a double. Bote is the son of long-time Niwot High School baseball coach Bob Bote, and the younger Bote pointed with both arms to his parents and the 32 family members and friends seated on the third-base side of Coors Field. The moment was not lost on the Colorado Rockies’ television crew, who interviewed Bob and Therese Bote during a b...
Track and field coaches, student-athletes, parents, and other spectators from across Boulder paid their respects to long-time Courier photographer Edward Navarro at the 42nd annual Lonnie Nixon Boulder County Championships, held April 14 at Centaurus High School.. Navarro, a fixture at area high school and college sporting events for more than a decade, passed away on Dec. 31 from complications of pulmonary fibrosis. Navarro family members, including wife Trudy, son Edward (Lucky) and daughter...
The Niwot girls soccer team managed just two goals in three games last week, but kept its conference championship hopes alive, thanks to consecutive shutouts by keeper Allie Colvin and the defense in two Northern league games. However, the Cougars’ failure to convert on scoring opportunities caught up with them against the substantially improved Mead Mavericks, and a 1-1-1 record in three games last week threatens their top-10 Class 4A RPI ranking. Head coach Stephen Dimit was clearly frustrated...
Calm winds and mild morning temperatures gave way to gusty afternoon winds at the Loveland Invite, held at the Olde Course April 11, but the Niwot girls golf team turned in another eye-opening performance that has head coach Ed Weaver reevaluating his outlook for the season. “From one to five, there was a five-stroke differential, and that’s not much” he said. “When we took a team to state my first year on the boys’ side, that was the exact same formula, interestingly enough.” The Cougars fin...
Senior Mya Ostrom is making the most of her final season with the Niwot girls golf team. On April 3, she finished a career-best fourth overall at the season’s second Northern League meet, held at Ute Creek Golf Course in Longmont. In less than ideal early-spring conditions, the third-year varsity player carded a 93 (+21) to lead the Cougars to a third place finish overall on the blustery day. In three league meets so far this season, the Cougars’ number-two golfer is averaging 95 strokes per...
Week of April 12 - April 18 Thursday,April 12 Baseball vs. Mountain View, 4 p.m. Soccer vs. Centaurus, 4 p.m. Friday, April 13 Golf: Northern League #3, Greeley, 9:30 a.m. Saturday,April 14 Track: BoCo Championships, Centaurus HS, 8 a.m. Baseball @ Mountain View, 12 p.m. Soccer @ Mead, 12 p.m. Monday, April 16 Tennis vs. Longmont, 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, April 17 Golf: Northern League #5, Indian Peaks,12:00 p.m. Baseball @ Skyline, 4 p.m. Soccer @ Longmont, 6 p.m....
Niwot senior Mya Ostrom battled gusty winds and chilly temps to finish a career-best fourth overall at the season’s second Northern League meet, held April 3, at Ute Creek Golf Course in Longmont. The suboptimal conditions proved challenging for the entire 30-player field, especially in the early going, as balls sailed out of bounds or into hazards with alarming frequency. Every golfer but one—reigning state champ Lauren Lehigh of Loveland—was at least 10 strokes over par for the day. Ostro...
Niwot sophomore Cruz Culpepper has finally hit his stride. After head-turning performances in two recent high profile track meets, the son of two former Olympians is generating buzz not just in local running circles, but nationally as well. On March 31, Culpepper took second in the 1600M at the Texas Relays, with a time of 4 minutes, 11.54 seconds, the fifth fastest high school time in this event so far this year. On April 7 in southern California, he took first in the boys mile race at the...
Niwot opened its Northern League schedule on April 5 with a 2-1 win over the scrappy Thompson Valley Eagles, thanks to midfielder Elise Crall, who was in the right place at the right time not once but twice during the game’s first half. Down at the other end of the field, senior keeper Allie Colvin and the Niwot defense deftly weathered not only the Eagles’ physical attack, but also some controversial officiating that had a lot of Cougar fans scratching their heads as the first half came to a c...
After her breakout cross country season, which included an impressive win in the regional meet, it would be easy to pigeonhole Niwot freshman Taylor James as mainly a distance runner. In her inaugural track and field season, however, the ninth-grader has shown a surprising depth of talent for both sprinting and jumping. Case in point is her performance at the exclusive Mullen Invitational, where she extended her streak of high jump wins to five with a mark of 5’6”, both a personal best and the s...
With a young team, you never know when things might start coming together. After winning two out of three in Arizona to get in the win column, albeit against some weaker competition, the Niwot Cougars returned home and picked up a victory in the first of two games against Centaurus, Niwot’s first Northern League Conference win of the season. Each team scored a run in the first inning of the April 5 game at Niwot, but the Warriors added three runs in the third inning to take a 4-1 lead. Niwot picked up a run in the fifth inning, but it took a f...
The Niwot boys track team is off to its best start in years, thanks in part to distance specialist Oskar Wells. At the season’s opening meet on March 10, Wells claimed his first-ever individual title with a victory in the 800M, finishing in 1:58.61, a new personal best. Since then, the soccer-player-turned-runner has won the 800M at two more local meets, the St. Vrain RE-1J meet on March 22 (1:58.69), and the Lyons Invitational (1:59.19) on March 31. He has also raced on several of the Niwot r...
TRACK & FIELD Valarie Allman (Silver Creek) is back for her senior year at Stanford after redshirting last season. Allman was far from idle, earning a silver medal at the World University Games in Taiwan, and setting the 12th-best discus mark in U.S. history. She opened the 2018 Track & Field season with a discus throw of 199.0 feet at the Stanford Invitational March 31, easily outdistancing the competition. In fact, all three of Allman’s throws would have won the meet, topping 184’5” each...
After an 0-5 start to the season, the Niwot Cougars were looking to get well in the Arizona sunshine, and it turned out to be just what the doctor ordered. Niwot faced Toledo, OR in the first game, and scored in every inning of a 22-1 mercy-rule victory. Senior Caleb Martinez, the ace of the Cougar pitching staff, allowed only one run in five innings, giving up only four hits and two walks while striking out 13. “It was what we needed,” Coach Adam Strah said. “We are so young.” The game also marked the return to the lineup of three-y...
The Niwot girls soccer team restored some balance to the universe with a narrow 1-0 win over cross-town rival Skyline at home on March 20. Junior Sierra Kepler and Kiera Flanagan combined for the game’s lone score, a rebound goal with less than 10 minutes remaining in the first half. However, for most of the game, the players battled the elements almost as much as they battled each other, as the windy conditions sometimes made the ball’s path unpredictable. Head coach Stephen Dimit said aft...
If ever there was a good time for a loss, Niwot’s narrow 4-3 defeat at the hands of defending Class 4A state champions Cheyenne Mountain on March 17, was it, according to head coach Aimee Keronen. With four of the seven matches lasting three sets, her team not only showed it can compete with the top teams in the state, it gave the players some keen insights for beating the nine-time champs in May. “I think it was ok to lose some of those three-set matches, because our girls are hungry now...
Even on St. Patrick’s Day, it wasn’t hard to spot the green-clad Niwot athletes competing in the Windsor Invitational, as they were almost always out in front of the pack. On a sunny spring day, tailor made for running fast, both veterans and newcomers set new personal bests in many of the meet’s sprint events, helping both the boys and girls to their second top-ten finishes of the still-early season. “It’s a perfect day,” Niwot head coach Maurice Henriques said. Now in his eighth year, Henri...
Niwot girls golf coach Ed Weaver wasn’t sure what to expect after a phalanx of novice golfers showed up for the first day of tryouts late last month, but he didn’t expect them to take to the sport so easily. Of the eight players on the 2018 roster, four are new to the game, but they’ve already proven to be precocious learners, a development that has Weaver enthusiastic about the future. “I have four freshmen, so that’s pretty cool,” he said. “I’m pretty excited about all of it. I’m definitely...
The Niwot girls tennis team is a serious contender for the Class 4A State title this year, and senior Julia Pentz is leading the charge. In four matches so far this season, the Cougars’ No. 3 singles player is undefeated, with a two-time state title-winner and last year’s state runner-up among her vanquished foes. “Julia is just awesome all around,” Niwot head coach Aimee Keronen said. “She’s a good team leader and she plays hard. I have all the confidence in the world in Julia.” In Niwot’s se...
The Niwot girls soccer team passed an early season test in the March 15 home opener with a 2-0 win over the Standley Lake Gators. A long Kenzie Pasma free kick into the Standley Lake box bounced in front of sophomore Natalia Storz who chipped it past the Gator keeper to break a scoreless tie in the 68th minute. Six minutes later, senior Anna McCarthy netted her sixth goal of the year to seal the victory. On the other side of the ball, senior keeper Allie Colvin and the Niwot defense staved off...
Niwot head baseball coach Adam Strah had strangely mixed feelings after his team’s loss in the season debut on March 8. Though unhappy to come out on the short end of the 3-1 contest, Strah said he was heartened by his youthful squad’s performance against the older, battle-tested Grizzlies. “It was very encouraging,” Strah said. “It’s two sides of the same coin. We hate to lose. We’re not getting on the bus happy because we lost. However, if you look at some of the young kids who were in there...
Senior Anna McCarthy and the Niwot girls soccer team kicked off the season in dramatic fashion with a 6-2 rout of the Skyview Wolverines on March 8. The speedy McCarthy scored two goals in the first ten minutes on her way to a career-high five goals on the night, more than exceeding the already-high expectations of coach Stephen Dimit. “I didn’t expect five, but I did expect the first two because she was just ready to do those,” Dimit said. “And I was really proud of the way she stepped up in t...
Niwot girls tennis coach Aimee Keronen admitted she’s feeling some pressure this season. Armed with a talent-laden lineup that includes a nationally-ranked freshman and eight returning State qualifiers, the Cougars may finally have the depth to challenge perennial powerhouses Cheyenne Mountain and Kent Denver for the Class 4A State title in May. The key, she said, will be to keep the youthful team working well together all season long. “The team on paper is capable of winning it all this yea...
BASEBALL David Bote, son of former Niwot High Baseball Coach Bob Bote, is in his first major league spring training camp with the Chicago Cubs in Mesa, AZ. Bote, playing second base, opened the exhibition season in the starting lineup and collected a single in his first plate appearance. He followed with another base hit in the second game of the spring, coming in as a replacement for Javier Baez. Bote, the Cubs’ 15th-ranked prospect, is featured on a video on the Cubs’ website, talking about working with Hall-of-Famer Alan Trammell last fal...
The graduation of standouts Kailee Stobbe and Maddie Barkow left two giant holes in the Niwot girls soccer team lineup, but head coach Steve Dimit isn’t panicking. With 13 varsity players returning this year and a group of very promising underclassmen joining them, Dimit believes the Cougars have all the tools they need to defend the Northern League title and make another deep run in the postseason. “We have a good, young crew,” Dimit said. “Everybody came back with something new, and I was rea...
Although there weren’t any Cougar wrestlers at this year’s Class 4A State tournament, a talented Niwot student had the crowd buzzing before the championship finals nevertheless. On the final night of the three-day tournament, Niwot junior and home crowd favorite Ellie Brown brought members of the overflow Pepsi Center crowd to their feet with her uniquely beautiful rendition of the national anthem. “Ellie is such a gifted singer, and she has done such an amazing job for us here at Niwot, I tho...
Niwot junior Caleb Churchill doesn’t remember a time when gymnastics wasn’t an important part of his life. As the son of a long-time gymnastics coach, Churchill has been in training ever since he could stand on his own. “When I learned to walk, my mom started doing classes for me,” Churchill said. “I started learning the basics then, and when I was in kindergarten, I started competing.” His mom, Kenzie, is the head coach at Cats Gymnastics in Boulder. Now in his tenth competitive season, the...
While waiting on the back side of Ski Cooper to take her final run in the girls slalom race at the 2018 CHSAA Alpine Skiing Championships on Feb. 23, Niwot freshman Emily Creek wasn’t sure what to think. Though she was racing on one of her favorite courses and held the lead by nearly a full second, the ninth-grader was afraid she would lose her competitive edge if she allowed herself to relax even a little bit. As she waited for 14 other competitors to take their runs before her, Creek decided t...
The Niwot girls basketball team still had a tiny bit of control over their playoff destiny going into the season finale with Northridge on Feb. 14. After 50-42 loss to league-leading Centaurus two nights before, the Cougars actually gained ground in the RPI standings, and a win over the Grizzlies would only help boost it further. Depending on how the teams above them performed in the final days of the regular season, Niwot could still cling to hopes of sneaking into the 48th and final berth....
Niwot sophomore Abbie Shaw wasn’t going to let a little thing like pneumonia stand between her and the podium at the Class 4A State Swim Championships this year. Diagnosed with the “walking” iteration of the illness in January, Shaw stuck to a rigorous training schedule during her recovery, determined to top her eighth-place finish in the 100 backstroke at State a year ago. “We knew she could sit pretty well in terms of a top-four finish, but you have to be on your ‘A’ game, and going into...
Shaving nearly two seconds off her second run, Niwot freshman Emily Creek claimed her second individual slalom title of the season at the CHSAA Girls Slalom Event at Winter Park on Feb. 8. Skiing for the Nederland High School team, Creek finished with a combined time of 1 minute, 50.01 seconds, more than two seconds faster than runner-up Beth Anne Droll of Middle Park (1:52.14). Nederland ended the day with 163 points, good for third overall in the tight team race, one point behind Middle Park...
Late season woes continued for the Niwot girls basketball team, which dropped another two conference games last week, and were all but eliminated from post-season contention in spite of a Saturday night victory over Silver Creek. On Feb. 6, the Cougars were blown-out at Mountain View 60-24, a stunning reversal from the earlier season matchup, won handily by Niwot. Then, two nights later, the Cougars squandered a 13-point third-quarter effort by Sophie Grant at Thompson Valley for their sixth...
Niwot senior David Koon wrapped up his high-school wrestling career last weekend at the Class 4A State Regional tournament. Saying goodbye to the sport he has loved since eighth grade has been harder than he expected. “Even though you wrestle as an individual, it’s really a team sport,” Koon said. “It’s a brotherhood. Everybody works together to better each other, and that aspect is really important to me.” Koon didn’t have a ton of success on the mat this season, with just five wins in 20 match...
Niwot wrestling called it a season at the Class 4A Regional 4 tournament at Golden High School last weekend, after none of its wrestlers qualified to compete at the upcoming state meet. Max Pechersewski (106), Brandon Barton (138), and Keith Hemenway (152) all won consolation round matches, but otherwise the Cougars were shut out of the scoring and finished last in the team standings, with just 10 points. Niwot head coach Bobby Matthews had tempered expectations for his team going into the weeke...
A pair of exciting top-three finishes in the last four events catapulted the Niwot girls swim team past cross-town rival Silver Creek and into fifth place at the Class 4A State Championship finals at the VMAC Feb. 10. Sophomore Abby Shaw bested her preliminary time by more than half a second to take second in the 100 backstroke right after freshman Emiley Yie led the eighth-seeded 200 freestyle relay team to a surprise third-place finish in the dramatic final. Niwot ended the day with top-ten...
With 420 team points, the Niwot girls captured second place in the 2018 Northern League swimming championships, held Feb. 2-3 at the Veteran’s Memorial Aquatic Center (VMAC) in Thornton. Niwot swimmers claimed conference titles in four of the 12 events, and three more Cougars qualified to compete in next weekend’s Class 4A state meet. “They were fantastic days of swimming for all of our girls,” Niwot head coach Sarah Stamp said. “It was an awesome performance by everyone.” Sophomore Payten Irwi...
On Jan. 26, Niwot High freshman Emily Creek took first place in the CHSAA girls slalom race at Copper Mountain. With a time of 1 minute 35.66 seconds, Creek beat out more than 70 other competitors for her first high-school win and her third top-ten finish of the season. On Jan. 18, she was just 12 one-hundredths of a second out of first in the girls slalom at Winter Park, and on Jan. 12, she finished fifth in the giant slalom (GS) event at Eldora. With the wins, she is qualified to compete at...
Thanks to an outstanding defensive effort led by seniors Rosie Setter and Allie Colvin, the Niwot girls basketball team snapped its four-game losing streak with a dramatic 34-32 victory over cross-town rival Longmont on Feb. 2. The Cougars forced 23 turnovers on the night, and held the Trojans to their lowest point total since Dec. 7. “That was a hard-fought win,” Niwot head coach Terri Ward said after her team edged out the Trojans for the second time this season. “Either team deserved to wi...
The Niwot wrestling team wrapped up the 2017-18 regular season on Feb. 1, falling 55-24 to 10th-ranked Mountain View. Matt Bitterman, David Koon, and Julian Molina all posted victories in their contested matches, while senior Brandon Barton was the beneficiary of a forfeit in the 138-pound class. Sophomores Keith Hemenway and Colton Gruszczynski fell in decisions. Following the meet, Niwot head coach Bobby Matthews said he was pleased with his wrestlers’ improvement down the stretch, even if i...
Niwot senior Rosie Setter may not be the highest scoring player on the girls basketball team, but it would be impossible to tell the story of the team’s recent success without her. After sitting out most of her junior season after suffering a torn ACL, the power forward returned to the court for Niwot in November on a mission: make up for lost time. “I hate the saying, ‘You never know how much you love something until you let it go’, but it’s so incredibly true,” Setter said. “I realized how...
No coach enjoys losing, but Niwot’s Terri Ward was surprisingly upbeat following her team’s 49-38 home court loss to Greeley Central on Jan 26. After her team fell to Northridge unexpectedly on Jan. 23, the coach admitted she wasn’t sure which version of her team would take the court against the first place Wildcats; the one who put together an impressive string of wins to start 2018, or the one that “laid an egg” against the Grizzlies earlier in the week. Much to her relief, it turned ou...
There’s a touch of irony in the fact that Payten Irwin has emerged as a standout swimmer for Niwot. After all, her mother — better known around these parts as Coach Aimee Keronen — has long been the head of Niwot’s high-performing girls tennis team. Irwin, however, never took to the racquet and court, so it was into the pool she went. “I tried tennis, but I was always pretty bored with it,” she said. “I played soccer a lot when I was younger, but one day I just decided to try swim practice and I...
The red-hot Niwot girls basketball team finally cooled off a bit last Thursday night, falling 45-41 to the first-place Centaurus Warriors after nearly pulling off a late-game comeback. Down by 11 early in the fourth quarter, the Cougars battled back to take the lead with less than 90 seconds to go, but late turnovers gave Centaurus all the chance they needed to put the game away for good. “We knew we had to play pretty much perfect, and we had some miscues,” Niwot head coach Terri Ward said fol...
Niwot swimmers took first or second place in seven of 12 events at the four-team All-City meet on Jan. 20, but it wasn’t quite enough to overtake the Silver Creek juggernaut. With a team score of 375 points, the Cougars finished second to the Raptors (455) for the fourth straight year, and will have to wait until 2019 for their next chance to reclaim the “Best in Longmont” title. “I’m thrilled to get second - the girls did great,” Niwot head coach Sarah Stamp said following the four-team m...
Led by first-year wrestlers Julian Molina and Matt Bitterman, the Niwot Cougars outlasted cross-town rival Silver Creek Thursday night Jan. 18, picking up their second Northern League victory of the year. “I am very proud of the two of them,” Matthews said following the win. “To come out for wrestling as sophomores for the first time is tough and they have embraced the grind.” Senior Brandon Barton (138 pounds) notched his sixth win of 2018 in the 41-36 Cougar victory, while sophomore Keith H...
It’s been an undeniably rough few weeks for the Niwot boys basketball team. Since resuming conference play on Jan. 9 against Longmont, the Cougars have gone 0-4, while scoring just 40 points per game, and losing by an average of nearly 32 points. With just nine games to go in the season, the Cougars’ playoff hopes are gone, but head coach Eric Hejl is hoping to end the year on a high note nevertheless. “At this point, a lot of guys have to take a hard look in the mirror and decide why they...
Niwot senior Nathan Hemenway is only 85 percent of the wrestler he was last year, and that’s just the way he likes it. As a junior, Hemenway wrestled in the 195-pound weight class, up 25-30 pounds from his sophomore weight of 170. After just moderate success at the heavier weight, he elected to shed the extra pounds and return to the lighter classification ahead of his fourth and final season. “I was being kind of stupid in how I was managing my weight,” he explained of the decision to retur...
The Niwot girls basketball team played its best game of the season on Thursday, Jan.12, beating conference foe Mountain View 62-46 in a game Niwot head basketball coach Terri Ward called “fabulous.” “They did everything I wanted them to do and more,” an elated Ward said after her team’s best offensive effort of the year. “We’ve had a good week. We’ve had a good 2018.” After starting the season 0-4, Niwot has gone 4-2 to improve to 6-6 on the year, and is now 2-1 in conference play. On Jan. 9,...
The Niwot girls swim team is making a splash in the early weeks of 2018, thanks to veterans Payten Irwin and Abbie Shaw, plus a group of newcomers who are providing depth in several key events. With the annual All City Meet just around the corner, head coach Sarah Stamp and the Cougars are looking forward to competition heating up in the final weeks of the season. “What’s been great is that they’re improving from week to week,” Stamp said of her team’s strong showing so far in 2017-18....
It was a rough ride for the Niwot boys basketball team at last weekend’s fourth annual Roughrider Shootout at Roosevelt High School. The Cougars went 0-3 at the round-robin tournament, losing on successive days to Skyview, Conifer, and Denver West, and extending their losing streak to eight games. Though their play improved over the weekend, a lack of consistent effort was once again the Cougars’ undoing, according to head coach Eric Hejl. “When we don’t play with confidence, we have a really...
