Denver, CO
Keeler: CU Buffs tackle Jordan Seaton won’t back down from Nebraska, CSU, or expectations. “This is a brotherhood. Brothers fight.”
BOULDER — I mean, sure, you could start a fight with Jordan Seaton. I’m just not sure you’d finish it.
Not in one piece, at any rate.
“Are the older guys … cool with you?” I asked the best lineman to sign with the Buffs out of high school since Jake Moretti as we kibitzed outside the Champions Center on Monday.
“Yes,” Seaton, CU’s five-star true freshman tackle replied.
“So no hazing?”
He raised an eyebrow.
“Hazing?”
He raised another.
“Like rookies carrying veterans’ pads at camp, stuff like that,” I replied. “It happens everywhere. You’ll find out at the next level. It’s what they do with rookies.”
Rookies! The light went on.
“Oh, like in The League,” Seaton said, referring to the National Football League.
“Yeah, in The League.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” he continued, catching the drift and running to daylight.
“We don’t really have that. For me, freshman initiation is just — listening, you know? Just listening to the guys in front of me. They don’t really do the hazing. Or the fighting. No, we don’t do that. This is a brotherhood. Brothers fight. But not to the point where it’s like we don’t like each other.”
Seaton’s easy to like, stellar resume notwithstanding. His arrival gives quarterback Shedeur Sanders a wingman with a 6-foot-10 wingspan, which doesn’t hurt. No. 77 is 6-5, 285 pounds of mess-around-and-find-out, a lineman who ran pass routes at the Under Armour Next All-American Game and reportedly registered a closing speed of 17.7 miles per hour on GPS during another tilt. (Context: The fastest wideouts in the NFL usually max out at roughly 20-21 mph.)
“I feel like the O-line last year (at CU) lacked passion. And right now we’ve got a lot of it,” Seaton continued. “We’ve got a lot of dudes. We’re just going at it … One dude might have a bad day today, next day, it’s ‘Oh, I’m getting back at that guy.’ So I feel like passion is what this offense and defense has the most, and integrity, like, within themselves.”
Like his head coach, Seaton fears neither man nor microphone, regardless of how hot they happen to be at that given moment. The teen from D.C. calls it like he sees it. Even if some truths land harder than others.
“I actually thought this place was going to be really, really bad,” the Buffs’ star blocker said of Boulder, and his first impressions therein.
“This is my opinion. Everybody has their own opinion. But I took a risk. And then me coming in and having Coach Prime and everything he told me that he was going to do, he did.”
While CU sports staffers around us chuckled awkwardly and clutched imaginary pearls, we had to ask the big man to backpedal on that one.
“Bad?” I asked, raising an eyebrow of my own this time. “Define ‘Bad.’”
“Nothing really too crazy,” Seaton continued. “Just as far as ‘bad’ — you don’t know how much money we’re bringing in here. So you go to other universities — the Big Tens, the SECs, they’ve got $10 billion contracts, all (that) crazy stuff.
“So … I thought I was taking a risk. But then coming in here, it exceeded expectations. We actually have a great facility. We actually spend a lot of money on food, as you can see, which I was talking about (earlier). And everything’s exceeded expectations, from the littlest things to the biggest things for me.”
The biggest thing for Seaton this fall? Keeping Shedeur happy and healthy. Accent on the latter.
“His football knowledge, being a freshman, coming in (as) a guy straight out of high school, his knowledge is up there,” new offensive line coach Phil Loadholt said of Seaton earlier this year. “He’s a student of the game. He works hard. He comes up and watches film and does everything he’s supposed to do. So that’s been the most impressive part of him.
“Obviously, physically you can see that he’s advanced, you know what I mean? But his mental part has been impressive to me.”
Seaton is the thinking man’s hammer. Already lean, the freshman has spent roughly two months on a diet of fish in an effort to replace body fat with muscle. Hand him a syllabus, he’ll stick to the plan. It’s no coincidence that coachable stars make a habit of shining the longest. And brightest.
“Not too many people want to go to the … I call (CU) an ‘underdog school,’ you know?” Seaton stressed. “A lot of people want to go to a school that’s built — a school like Georgia (or) Bama where it’s, like, you’re (the) next guy up.
“But here … you never had (any) 5-star offensive linemen come here. You don’t have a Travis Hunter coming here every time. You don’t have a Shedeur Sanders that could be (here) every time. So it (was) a risk in that area. Not like it’s going to be bad or it’s going to be a terrible place to live in … just a risk as far as there’s nobody else to do it. So now it’s, like, ‘You can really be the first.’”
And if Seaton plows dudes from the jump?
The kid might not be the last.
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Originally Published:
Denver, CO
Fire destroys home under construction in northwest Denver
DENVER (KDVR) — An early morning fire on Friday left a home completely ablaze in the Highlands neighborhood, just a week after another house under construction went up in flames in the same area.
The Denver Fire Department shared photos of the incident, as crews were called to 3643 Mariposa, where images show a fully consumed home under construction.
“I think they [firefighters] kicked in the neighbor’s door just to make sure nobody was at home,” neighbors Lucy and Kyle said. “Some of the other houses, their windows got blown out from the heat!”
Just 11 days earlier, on June 8, a home under construction caught fire in the same neighborhood near West 33rd and Navajo. Nobody was hurt in either fire.
And just about two years earlier, in July, another fire in the same area ignited around West 36th and Osage. All of the properties are/were under development by the same group.
“I wasn’t present for any of the fires,” Ryan Yoffe, a member of the developer group, said.
Yoffe does say he thinks he knows how the last two fires had been set, saying it’s the City of Denver that needs to do better with surveillance.
“It’s likely related to the amount of homelessness in the area, looking for properties under construction to live in or burn down,” Yoffe said. “The City and the Police Department need to do a better job patrolling to limit the number of homeless people camping in the neighborhood.”
Denver Fire Department officials say the most recent incidents are under investigation, but that nobody was hurt in either.
Denver, CO
Rockies ride Kyle Freeland’s gem, Braxton Fulford’s double to 4-3 win over Pirates
The night belonged to Kyle Freeland, who joined the 1,000 K Club. The moment belonged to Braxton Fulford. The ninth inning — and a big sigh of relief — belonged to closer Antonio Senzatela.
Fulford hit a two-run, two-out, pinch-hit double in the eighth inning off Mason Montgomery to lead the Rockies to a 4-3 win over the Pirates at Coors Field in front of a Friday night crowd of 33,596.
Fulford drove in Tyler Freeman and Cole Carrigg, who scratched out back-to-back two-out singles off Montgomery.
“I had been warming up in the cage for that at-bat for a couple of innings, so I felt pretty prepared,” Fulford said. “I got an advantage count (3-1) and I knew he was going to come with the heater and I was all over it.”
Fulford caught Montgomery for three seasons at Texas Tech, so he knew the left-hander’s tendencies.
“It’s kind of unfortunate for pitchers that you catch, because you kind of get to see their stuff,” Fulford said. “You kind of understand more of who they are. So I do feel like I had the advantage there.”
In the ninth, the Pirates loaded the bases against Senzatela with no outs on a single by Marcell Ozuna and an error on a groundball by shortstop Ezequiel Tovar. But Senzatela struck out pinch-hitter Tyler Callihan and induced Jared Triolo to ground to Tovar, who started the game-ending double play.
“It was kind of a crazy ending to the game — bases loaded and no outs,” Freeland said. ” ‘Senza’ got a big punchout in that situation, picks up Tovar. Then Tovar gets another opportunity to turn a double play, and he gets it done.”
Before all of the late-game drama, Freeland pitched his best game of the season: 7 1/3 innings, two runs allowed on four hits, no walks, and eight strikeouts. It marked the fourth time in his career that he pitched 7 1/3 or more innings.
“Tonight, I thought he was absolutely exceptional,” manager Warren Schaeffer said. “I thought his body language was impressive. He attacked the strike zone — relentlessly. His heater had good ‘vert’ tonight. The breaker was good. It seemed like he was in control all night.”
“Gritty” is the word often used to describe Freeland. Dominant was a more apt description on Friday night. History-making works, too. Freeland’s eight Ks gave him 1,001 for his career, joining right-hander German Marquez (1,069) as the only two pitchers in franchise history to eclipse 1,000. Freeland struck out Marcell Ozuna in the seventh for No. 1,000, and then promptly fanned Brandon Lowe for 1,001.
The hard-core Rockies fans behind the dugout gave Freeland a standing ovation.
“I’m very grateful for the fans always supporting me, and for making it this long in my career to reach some of these milestones, especially with one ballclub,” said Freeland, who struck out eight and walked none for the second time in his career. “I definitely hear those fans when I pop out of the dugout after every inning.”
The 33-year-old Denver native blanked the Pirates for the first seven innings, giving up just two hits. Pittsburgh finally got to Freeland in the eighth, putting up back-to-back doubles by Esmerlyn Valdez and Triolo to cut Colorado’s lead to 2-1. Up to that point, it looked as if Freeland had the juice to throw a complete game, especially since he threw just 81 pitches.
Freeland was pulled in the eighth for right-hander Jaden Hill, who gave up an RBI single up the middle to pinch-hitter Bryan Reynolds, tying the game, 2-2. Then Hill hit leadoff hitter Spencer Horowitz, and Nick Gonzalez scorched a triple off the right-field wall, scoring Horowitz and giving the Pirates a 3-2 lead.
Colorado staked a 1-0 lead in the third against hard-throwing right-hander Bubba Chandler. Willi Castro’s single scored Ezequiel Tovar, who reached on a bunt single.
The Rockies extended their lead to 2-0 in the fourth on rookie first baseman TJ Rumfield’s leadoff homer. He sent Chandler’s first-pitch slider 427 feet into the right-field seats. It was Rumfield’s 11th homer and his 38th RBI.
Pitching probables
Saturday: Pirates RHP Paul Skenes (6-6, 2.85 ERA) at Rockies RHP Tomoyuki Sugano (7-4, 4.54), 7:10 p.m.
Sunday: Pirates RHP Jared Jones (1-1, 6.23) at Rockies RHP Michael Lorenzen (2-8, 7.13), 1:10 p.m.
TV: Rockies.TV
Radio: KOA 850 AM/94.1 FM
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Denver, CO
Man arrested on suspicion of murder in Denver shooting near South Park Hill, Hale
Denver police arrested a 35-year-old man on suspicion of first-degree murder in a fatal shooting near East Colfax Avenue and North Dahlia Street.
Joseph York was arrested Thursday after detectives identified him as a suspect through interviews and surveillance video, the Denver Police Department said in a news release Friday.
Detectives believe York was arguing with the victim, 25-year-old Elijah Barr, before the shooting in the early hours of June 7, the Denver Police Department said in a news release Friday. The intersection is between the city’s South Park Hill and Hale neighborhoods.
Barr was found with multiple gunshot wounds and was pronounced dead at the hospital.
York is being held without bail in the Downtown Detention Center and is set to appear in Denver County Court on Saturday, jail records show.
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