MHS softball ends season 11-1; win district title

MEEKER | The Meeker Cowboy softball team completed their regular season with a 16-1 victory over the Aspen Skiers on Saturday. Jasmine Patterson and Kenzie Turner led the offensive effort with perfect days at the plate. Pitchers Macko Marshall and Tori Lasker were dominant defensively combining to hold the Skiers to only three hits and a single run. The cowboys honored seniors Taylor Dodds, Sierra Williams, Jasmine Patterson and Abbi Powell before the game and dressed in pink for their annual breast cancer awareness game.
Meeker finished the Western Slope 3A district play with a commanding 11-1 record to win the title over much larger schools including Cortez, Delta, Basalt, Gunnison, Aspen and Cedaredge. Meeker won the honor of hosting the Class 3A Region 8 tournament of the state playoffs on Oct. 14. They will play Denver’s Sheridan High School at 10 a.m. The local regional play will also feature highly ranked University High School of Greeley. The lady Cowboys would love local fans come to support them Saturday in their quest toward a state championship.
Coach Briana Williams commented, “We set a goal last spring to be hosting the regional tournament this year. In only our third year of varsity play, people told us that was shooting awfully high, but I knew our girls and have been confident that we would end up right here. Seeding for the playoffs seem to have been based on a formula called the RPI which doesn’t give us credit for playing against 4A teams every chance we got and then really dominating our league play.
We are a little disappointed to be a number nine seed and to be in a regional with teams as potent as University and Sheridan; we had the second best record in the state and are ranked fourth by the poll that considers team strength and performance instead of relying so heavily on competitors win/loss records. We sure hope to show that we got a rough deal on the seeding and welcome the opportunity to prove ourselves. If we are going to win the state championship, we have to beat them all sooner or later, so we will welcome the chance to start against some of the best.”
While the varsity softball team competed against Aspen, the junior varsity team travelled to Rifle to participate in a JV tournament. Makenna Burke, Grace Gibson, Brynlee Williams, Sarina Goedert, Abi Powell, Jadynn Archuleta, Madison Kindler, Karlee Nielsen, Jade Simmons, Marryn Shults and Sierra Gomez represented Meeker in games against Basalt, Fruita Monument and Delta. The Cowboys led Basalt through most of the game only to fall in a heartbreaker at the end. They showed a great effort against Fruita before putting a dominant effort together to beat Delta.