AIR FORCE ACADEMY — Longtime Cheyenne Mountain baseball coach Mark Swope would love to have nine players like Charlie Scofield on his roster.
Well, there’s only one Charlie Scofield, but he is the biggest reason the Red-Tailed Hawks will play Saturday for a Class 4A state championship. Scofield, a senior who is committed to play at Wheaton College next season, was the winning pitcher in both games Friday at Erdle Field as the Hawks came back to defeat Palisade, 5-3, and then hung on for dear life to knock out Windsor, 5-2.
Oh, and Scofield knocked in four of the club’s 10 runs at the plate as well.
“I, for sure, did not wake up thinking that I would do that today,” Scofield said. “But I mean, to have done it now … it feels amazing. Just to help the team anyway I can, it’s exhilarating.”
Scofield’s biggest contribution came on the mound. He took over for starter Colton Johnson against Palisade in the sixth with the game knotted at 3-3 and tossed two shutout innings. Johnson was the hero at the plate, driving in the winning runs in the top of the seventh with a bases loaded-single.
The crafty lefty was just getting started. Windsor had scored 42 runs in its five-game state playoff run, including a 12-11 loss to Golden last weekend. Scofield shut the high-powered Wizards down, scattering three hits across six shutout innings.
He faced one jam, but induced an inning-ending groundout with two runners on in the fourth. Scofield’s full line for the day: Eight innings, zero runs, six strikeouts … and two wins.
“That’s the best I’ve seen him pitch — ever,” said senior catcher Nate Glad, who had four hits between the two games and kept two aggressive baserunning teams at bay from behind the plate. “It was awesome. I think we got some momentum and just kept our energy up the whole day.”
Cheyenne Mountain built a 5-0 lead through the first six innings. Then Scofield ran out of pitches and it went a little sideways.
“It was terrifying,” Scofield said. “I was thinking about (the pitch count) a lot. Every inning I’d come in and ask one of the coaches how many I had left.”
Swope turned to shortstop Andrew Campbell, who allowed four straight singles without getting an out. When Charlie Doyle relieved Campbell, the Wizards had the tying run at the plate with nobody out and the heart of the order coming up.
Doyle gave up two hard-hit balls, but both were right at left fielder Chase Hoendervoogt. In between, he hit a batter, so Windsor had the bases loaded and the winning run at the plate with one and two outs.
Naturally, the final out was in Scofield’s hands. Doyle induced a ground ball to first base, which Scofield scooped up and calmly took himself to the bag before setting off a combination of exhales and celebratory roars.
“Throughout the game, it was pretty stress-free,” Swope said. “Then all of a sudden, they didn’t miss a pitch. Every ball they hit was on the screws. Doyle did such a great job coming in, putting the fire out. That’s not easy, especially when one team has momentum like that and you’re coming in with all that traffic.”
The Hawks will be back at Erdle Field on Saturday morning. They need two wins against Golden, which is 25-3 this season and undefeated in the state tournament.
Scofield and Johnson can’t take the mound because of pitch-count limits. The Demons, many of whom were in attendance Friday afternoon, will be rested. They beat Cheyenne Mountain, 7-4, earlier in the tournament.
“We definitely could have beaten them last time,” Glad said. “The errors (they committed four) and the hitting just wasn’t there. I think we have a really good shot against them.”
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