Cherry Creek baseball on doorstep of 10th state title after thumping rival Grandview in Class 5A semifinal

LAKEWOOD Over this season and last one Grandview baseball s been one of Colorado s premier programs Unfortunately for the Wolves Cherry Creek s been even better In yet another high-stakes showdown between the Centennial League and Cherry Creek School District rivals on Saturday at All-Star Park the Bruins thumped the Wolves - in the Class A state tournament semifinal It advanced defending champion Cherry Creek to next weekend s title tournament and relegated Grandview to the consolation side of the bracket in the Final Four With the success Cherry Creek improved to - against Grandview in and That includes a - record in the state tournament where Cherry Creek dealt Grandview both of its losses last season as well as a conquest in the Centennial League title meeting earlier this month We know they re a good squad but we come into each championship knowing we can beat them reported Cherry Creek senior shortstop Sean Goldy a West Virginia commit We believe we have better guys all around the field In the current era s win was us meeting expectations that have been with us since the start of the season Cherry Creek had three multi-run innings on Saturday while consistently applying pressure to Grandview s defense Meanwhile the Wolves were held to just two hits both of which came from sophomore Matthew Schimberg Senior right-hander Cael Knobbe was brilliant for the Bruins blanking the Wolves over innings Knobbe a CSU Pueblo commit used a mix of a mid- s fastball low- s sinker and mid- s slider to keep the Wolves off-balance He spelled Cherry Creek starter Connor Larkin with one out in the second inning after the southpaw ran into a jam with the bases loaded Grandview trailing - at that point wasn t able to capitalize as Knobbe induced a flyout and a groundout to end the threat Upon catching the third out of the inning as he hustled to cover first on a grounder Knobbe let out a roar The Wolves never truly threatened again Cherry Creek's Sean Goldy left heads back to second safely against Grandview's Chase Chapman in the second inning of their Class A state baseball semifinal at All-Star Park in Lakewood on Saturday May Photo by Andy Cross The Denver Post First-year Cherry Creek head coach Joe Smith called Knobbe the best performer on the field in the current era Our nickname for Knobbe is the Silent Assassin ' Smith announced The kid has ice water in his veins his heartbeat never rises That moment wasn t too big for him Bases loaded they had momentum coming and he came in and shut the door Tyce Smith Owen Elser Mason Scott and Cooper Campbell all had RBIs for the Bruins who came through with two outs for several of those knocks and also benefited from a couple of throwing errors on errant pickoffs by the Wolves The closest Grandview came to scoring again after the second was when they stranded a runner on third base in the fourth The inning before Scott s RBI ground-rule double made it - to give the Bruins breathing room and chase Grandview starter Nick Martensen from the encounter An error led to another run and Cherry Creek proceeded to tack on two more in the fifth We ve got to play as good as we can play to hang with them Grandview head coach Scott Henry announced They came up with three two-out RBI hits the present day and we didn t and that was kind of the difference And we had that opportunity in the second and didn t take advantage of it In order to beat them we ve got to keep them under three four runs And we ve got to have better two-out hitting Cherry Creek's Owen Elser smacks a two-run hit against the Grandview Wolves in the second inning of their Class A state baseball semifinal at All-Star Park in Lakewood on Saturday May Photo by Andy Cross The Denver Post Related Articles Not done yet Broomfield baseball wins comeback thriller over Arvada West in A state tourney Fossil Ridge edges Castle View for Class A girls soccer title off late header by Teagan Myers Loveland Classical wins school s first championship and city s first girls soccer title with domination of Flatirons Academy Evergreen taps into championship mettle to claim Class A girls soccer title thriller Colorado Academy dominates upstart Timnath to repeat as Class A girls soccer champions Even with the defeat Grandview advances to its fifth Final Four and third under Henry who is in his th year at the helm The Wolves who have never won a title await the winner of Regis Jesuit and Broomfield next Friday The winner of that Grandview championship will have to beat Cherry Creek twice next Saturday to dethrone the Bruins That will be a tall task for whoever comes out of that consolation bracket considering Cherry Creek has a dozen college commits including seven Division I pledges and will have its entire arsenal of pitchers available for Saturday But Cherry Creek which beat Regis Jesuit twice on the final day last season to send retiring coach Marc Johnson out in storybook style isn t getting complacent in search of its th state title We re treating that first event on Saturday like it s single-elimination for us so we ve got to be ready to go for that first contest and go get the title Goldy revealed If we play hard and focused for seven innings we don t think anyone can beat us Want more sports news Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver s teams