The 2021 winter sports season was one of the most unique seasons in the history of Colorado high school sports. COVID-19 shook up everything and really changed how each of the sports respective seasons looked. There were various new implications and rules in every sport, making this year that much harder on our athletes. Despite this, all of our winter sports teams had great seasons and persevered through everything that was thrown at them.

The girls swim and dive team almost wasn’t able to be together at all this season, making it hard on the swimmers. Junior Madison Voytko explained, “When the whole team wasn’t together it was hard, and even with social distancing, we weren’t allowed to have team meetings.” At the state competition for swimming, the Mustangs made their mark In diving our superstar Isabelle Gregerson finished second in the state in the 1 meter dive with a score of 485.45. In the 200 meter medley relay the Mustangs finished 15 in the state with great efforts from Sydney Metzler, Tegan Rooney, Madison Voytko,and Lili Neisser. Sydney Metzler broke her own record that she had previously set in the backstroke, she swam the 100 backstroke in 56.13 in the prelims for the record. Her time of 56.82 in the final was not quite as fast, but it was enough to win the event – 1st Team All Conference by winning. Another Mustang finishing in the top ten of their respective event was Teagan Rooney who placed 8th in the state in the 5oo meter freestyle. Overall the Mustangs did have a solid finish, ending up in 16th place at the state championships. Senior swimmer Evi Williamson said, “we didn’t do as well as we wanted, but we did the best we could with this weird year.”

The girls basketball team had another outstanding season exceeding all expectations. The squad ended with a league record of 7 and 1 and an overall record of 14-3, good enough for the second spot in the Jeffco division. The girls basketball team had plenty of offense this year as they were led by Sydney Bevington (18.3 PPG) and Saya Sabus (13.4 PPG). Both of these athletes were top five in scoring for Jeffco. The Mustangs also had no problems on the boards, having two of the top four rebounders in the league with Brooklyn Seymour pulling down 8.4 RPG and Sydney Bevington with 8.7 RPG. After a successful regular season, the girls basketball team headed to state playoffs with high hopes, easily advancing all the way to the great eight where they ultimately fell to Highlands Ranch. Girls basketball had another great season and will be saying farewell to six seniors- Rachel Meeks, Sydney Bevington, Brooklyn Seymour, Bailey Wall, McKenna Nichols, and Alexia Zendajas.  This last year was a special one for the seniors, Rachel Meeks explained, “it was a great honor to be part of such a close knit and really strong team for my senior season. We have all been playing together since around 5th grade so being able to go to Great 8 with this group was really special for me!” It was a great season and past couple of years, you will be missed!

Ice hockey season this year was a wild ride from start to finish. After a very strong start and being ranked top 3 in the state for multiple weeks it seemed as if nothing could go wrong and that the hockey team was destined for a state title. The Mustangs burst out to an 8-0 season start led by senior Garin Smith (12 PTS) and junior Chase Coisman (17 PTS). Starting the season 8-0 things were looking good for the hockey team until tragedy struck. One week before the end of the regular season the hockey team came down with COVID and caused the team to cancel its remaining games including senior night. Unfortunately for the team and it’s seniors, the season was over with no real ending or playoff opportunity. Thankfully we will still be able to honor our 10 seniors on 3/25 at 7:00 pm at the Apex Center, make sure to come out and support our hockey boys for one last hoorah!

Boys basketball had a good solid season finishing third in Jeffco with a 6-2 record, fishing 9-6 overall. Basketball team started off strong, jumping out to 4 and 1 record in their first five games getting big wins over teams like Valor and crosstown rivals Pomona. Senior Daniel Somorin explained that these big wins really helped the team, “beating a rival team or a team like Valor always feels good and gets the guys going”. The scoring of the basketball team was led by junior Zack Akin(13.3 PPG)  and senior Blake Butividas(10.1 PPG). Along with these scorers the boys basketball team had two of the very best shooters in the league. Junior Zach Friedman finished off the season shooting a remarkable 65% from the field while senior Luke Hoskins was second on the team shooting 53% from the field. Unfortunately, the basketball team’s season came to an early end with a round one exit losing to Eaglecrest High School. The team and it’s six seniors fought hard all year and had a great season.

This winter sports season was a season like no other and certainly one to remember. Despite all of the hardships that all of our athletes faced this season, all of our sports teams exceeded expectations and had great seasons.