Colorado
Floydada softball refocuses during delay to down Colorado City in region quarterfinal Game 3
WOLFFORTH — The Floydada softball team spent nearly as much time in the parking lot as it did on the field Saturday.
The first lightning delay was welcomed. The Whirlwinds trailed Colorado City 9-0 late in an uncharacteristic Game 2. The time away allowed Floydada to regroup and focus on correcting its mistakes.
The Winds came out like a new team in Game 3, jumping out to a 4-0 lead with a revived offense. Lightning struck again.
One might’ve worried the second pause would throw off the newfound rhythm. Floydada coach Armando Morales didn’t.
The Winds’ bats remained steady following the almost two-hour delay, leading to a 13-6 series-clinching win in the Region I-2A quarterfinal at the Frenship Athletic Complex.
“I knew the second game (of the series) wasn’t us,” Morales said. “(C-City) did a heck of a job changing things and doing things different and adjusting. But I know what I have in my team. The break just helped us to encourage ourselves to get better and to move on, so it helped out.”
SOFTBALL PLAYOFFS: Lubbock, South Plains schedule, results
Floydada offense night and day in doubleheader
C-City’s Mia Obenhaus allowed four hits with seven strikeouts and one walk in a complete-game shutout in Game 2. Wolves coach Jesse Casarez said she threw a “great game” in a 4-3 loss in the opener Thursday as well, but he gave K.K. Lloyd the nod in the decisive contest.
Lloyd pitched “lights out” the previous round against Clarendon, Casarez said, but she lasted five batters into Game 3. By the time Obenhaus returned to the circle, the Winds led 3-0 following three hits.
Floydada got the better of Obenhaus, too, even with an hour and 45 minutes on its bus in between. The Winds totaled 16 hits, seven for extra bases. The team hit four apiece in the first three innings to go up 11-1.
Carisa Fernandez, who went 3 for 3 with a double, two triples and five RBIs, said Floydada took time to adjust to the lefty Obenhaus.
“We haven’t seen a left-handed pitcher this year,” Fernandez said, “so seeing it from the opposite side, I think it was in our heads and we were thinking about it too much. … She’s a really good pitcher, but I finally think we adjusted to it. We settled down and we felt at home in the box.
“We hit our pitches instead of hitting her pitches.”
Casarez wraps up first season
So ended the Wolves’ first season under Casarez, a 1989 Lubbock High grad. Casarez, who started three freshmen and four sophomores, said the team adjusted to his “old school” coaching style and grew.
“I was extremely proud of them,” Casarez said. “We could have laid down when it was 11-1, and we came back and had a little fight.”
REGION QUARTERFINALS: Fernandez erupts for 12 RBIs to lead Monterey past Lubbock-Cooper
Analise Perez makes Floydada ‘whole’ in finale
Game 3 also saw the return of Analise Perez. The shortstop missed Saturday’s matinee after a Game 1 collision with Fernandez, who joked they were “playing football in the outfield.”
The senior Perez had an RBI and was part of a clean defense. She recorded three putouts and two assists as Floydada bounced back from a three-error Game 2.
“Having her back, it was huge,” Fernandez said. “She’s a huge part of our lineup. She’s a huge part in the field. I felt like without her we felt like we weren’t whole. But with her we came together. We knew what we needed to do, and we came out with a vengeance.”
REGION I-2A QUARTERFINAL
GAME 2
Colorado City 9, Floydada 0
Floydada 000 000 0 — 0 4 3
Colorado 300 150 x — 9 6 1
Madison Pyle and Alli Hernandez (5). Mia Obenhaus. W — Obenhaus. L — Pyle. 3B — Colorado City, K.K. Lloyd.
GAME 3
Floydada 13, Colorado City 6
Colorado 010 131 0 — 6 10 3
Floydada 434 002 x — 13 16 0
K.K. Lloyd and Mia Obenhaus (1). Alli Hernandez. W — Hernandez. L — Lloyd. 2B — Floydada, Kirsten Pyle 2, Carisa Fernandez, Madison Pyle. Colorado City, Alexis Martinez, Obenhaus, Alyssa Wooddell, Lyla Ramon. 3B — Floydada, Fernandez 2, Soriah Wickware. HR — Colorado City, Martinez.
Records: Floydada 26-7-1; Colorado City 24-12.
Colorado
Two-alarm fire damages hotel in Estes Park, 1 person taken to a Colorado hospital
A two-alarm fire damaged a hotel in Estes Park on Friday night. It happened at Expedition Lodge Estes Park just north of Lake Estes.
The lodge, located at 1701 North Lake Avenue on the east side of the Colorado mountain town, was evacuated after 8:30 p.m. and the fire chief said by 10 p.m. the fire was under control.
One person was hurt and taken to a hospital.
The cause of the fire is under investigation. So far it’s not clear how much damage it caused.
A total of 25 firefighters fought the blaze.
Colorado
Warm storm delivers modest totals to Colorado’s northern mountains
Lucas Herbert/Arapahoe Basin Ski Area
Friday morning wrapped up a warm storm across Colorado’s northern and central mountains, bringing totals of up to 10 inches of snowfall for several resorts.
Higher elevation areas of the northern mountains — particularly those in and near Summit County and closer to the Continental Divide — received the most amount of snow, with Copper, Winter Park and Breckenridge mountains seeing among the highest totals.
Meanwhile, lower base areas and valleys received rain and cloudy skies, thanks to a warmer storm with a snow line of roughly 9,000 feet.
Earlier this week, OpenSnow meteorologists predicted the storm’s snow totals would be around 5-10 inches, closely matching actual totals for the northern mountains. The central mountains all saw less than 5 inches of snow.
Here’s how much snow fell between Wednesday through Friday morning for some Western Slope mountains, according to a Friday report from OpenSnow:
Aspen Mountain: 0.5 inches
Snowmass: 0.5 inches
Copper Mountain: 10 inches
Winter Park: 9 inches
Breckenridge Ski Resort: 9 inches
Arapahoe Basin Ski Area: 8.5 inches
Keystone Resort: 8 inches
Loveland Ski Area: 7 inches
Vail Mountain: 7 inches
Steamboat Resort: 6 inches
Beaver Creek: 6 inches
Irwin: 4.5 inches
Cooper Mountain: 4 inches
Sunlight: 0.5 inches
Friday and Saturday will be dry, while Sunday will bring northern showers. The next storms are forecast to be around March 3-4 and March 6-7, both favoring the northern mountains.
Colorado
Avalanche discipline, power play falters, Central Division lead shrinks in 5-2 loss to Wild
The Colorado Avalanche had a chance Thursday night to regain some real separation between them and the Minnesota Wild.
It didn’t happen, and special teams were again an issue.
Minnesota’s Joel Eriksson Ek scored a pair of power-play goals, while the Avalanche took too many penalties and did not convert its chances with the extra man in a 5-2 loss at Ball Arena. The Wild scored on two of six power plays, both in the second period, then added a shorthanded goal into an empty net for good measure.
“We took six (penalties). Six is too many, especially against a power play like theirs,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “We had a slow start to the second and then just kind of started getting going, then took a bunch of penalties and kind of took the momentum away and swung it back in their favor again.”
Mackenzie Blackwood was excellent early in this contest and stopped 31 of 34 shots for the Avs in his first start since the Olympic break. Colorado, which went 0-for-3 on the power play, has not scored an extra-man goal in back-to-back games since Dec. 31 and Jan. 3. The Avs are 2-for-31 with the man advantage since Jan. 16, and at 15.1% are last in the NHL.
The Wild are now just five points behind the Avs in the Central Division, though Colorado has two games in hand. Filip Gustavsson made 44 saves for the visitors.
“I think we crated enough chances to win the hockey game,” Bednar said. “We give up the (second power-play goal) and that’s the difference in the hockey game for me. We had a chance (on the power play) … we score and it’s a tie game. We haven’t had an easy time capitalizing on some of our chances that we created in the last month.
“I’d like to see that turn around a little bit.”
Minnesota took advantage of three penalties on Colorado in a span of 53 seconds to take the lead with 2:23 left in the second period. Captain Gabe Landeskog was sent to the box for elbowing Eriksson Ek away from the play at 14:15 and Valeri Nichushkin was called for cross-checking at 15:04.
That gave the Wild a 5-on-3, but it went from bad to worse in a hurry for the home side. Brock Nelson won the 3-on-5 in his own end, but Brent Burns’ backhanded attempt to clear the puck out of the zone went into the stands for a delay of game.
Minnesota had a 5-on-3 for 1:56, which Colorado successfully killed off, but because Burns’ two minutes didn’t start until Landeskog’s penalty ended, there was more 5-on-4 time and Eriksson Ek scored his second of the night. The Swedish Olympian was trying to send a cross-crease pass to Kirill Kaprizov, but it hit the inside of Blackwood’s right leg and pinballed across the goal line.
Because of the extended penalty time, both Eriksson Ek and Boldy officially logged a shift of more than four minutes, leading to that goal.
“I’m not a big fan of the penalties we took, necessarily,” Landeskog said. “Obviously, mine is a penalty. Val, I felt like he was protecting himself and Burns, that’s a penalty. There’s nothing to argue about there. But yeah, that tilts the ice for sure and just gives them unnecessary momentum.
“So yeah, undisciplined and we’ve got to be better there for sure.”
Eriksson Ek put Minnesota in front at 7:48 of the second period. Cale Makar was called for slashing when his one-handed swipe while Yakov Trenin was attempting to shoot from the left wing. Trenin’s stick broke, so Makar went to the box.
Blackwood made the initial save on Matt Boldy’s shot from the high slot, but Eriksson Ek was there near the left post to clean up the rebound.
Martin Necas continued his hot run with a goal to even the score at 13:30 of the middle frame. Nathan MacKinnon picked up the puck in his own zone and carried it into the offensive end. He left a drop pass for Necas near the right point and then played fullback, driving Wild defenseman Daemon Hunt back to give Necas space and then providing a screen on a lethal wrist shot from his Czech linemate.
That was Necas’ 24th goal of the season. He added a second goal in the final minute after the Wild had built a three-goal advantage to give him 25 on the season.
It’s also three in two games since the Olympic break. Necas had three goals and eight points in five games for Czechia at the Olympics in Milan, equaling his country’s record for points at the event.
MacKinnon missed Colorado’s first game back on Wednesday because of maintenance. He actually slipped to third in the NHL scoring race as of Thursday morning, in part because Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov has now has 53 points in his past 23 games to track down MacKinnon and Edmonton’s Connor McDavid to make it a three-man race for the Art Ross Trophy.
McDavid (five times) and Kucherov (three) have combined to win the Art Ross in eight of the past nine years. MacKinnon has never won it, but has finished second each of the past two seasons.
Minnesota scored a second goal off a Colorado player to make it a 3-1 game and then added two empty-net tallies around Necas’ second goal to seal the Wild’s sixth win in a row.
Want more Avalanche news? Sign up for the Avalanche Insider to get all our NHL analysis.
-
World2 days agoExclusive: DeepSeek withholds latest AI model from US chipmakers including Nvidia, sources say
-
Massachusetts3 days agoMother and daughter injured in Taunton house explosion
-
Montana1 week ago2026 MHSA Montana Wrestling State Championship Brackets And Results – FloWrestling
-
Louisiana5 days agoWildfire near Gum Swamp Road in Livingston Parish now under control; more than 200 acres burned
-
Denver, CO3 days ago10 acres charred, 5 injured in Thornton grass fire, evacuation orders lifted
-
Technology7 days agoYouTube TV billing scam emails are hitting inboxes
-
Technology7 days agoStellantis is in a crisis of its own making
-
Politics7 days agoOpenAI didn’t contact police despite employees flagging mass shooter’s concerning chatbot interactions: REPORT