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 7-1 in the Class 5A state tournament semifinal. It advanced defending champion Cherry Creek to next weekend’s title game, and relegated Grandview to the consolation side of the bracket in the Final Four.
With the victory, Cherry Creek improved to 5-1 against Grandview in 2024 and ’25. That includes a 3-0 record in the state tournament, where Cherry Creek dealt Grandview both of its losses last season, as well as a victory in the Centennial League title game earlier this month.
“We know they’re a good team, but we come into each game knowing we can beat them,” said Cherry Creek senior shortstop Sean Goldy, a West Virginia commit. “We believe we have better guys all around the field. (Today’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 5 2/3 innings.
Knobbe, a CSU Pueblo commit, used a mix of a mid-80s fastball, low-80s sinker and mid-70s 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 3-1 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.
First-year Cherry Creek head coach Joe Smith called Knobbe “the best player on the field today.”
“Our nickname for (Knobbe) is the ‘Silent Assassin,’” Smith said. “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 4-1 to give the Bruins breathing room and chase Grandview starter Nick Martensen from the game. 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 said. “They came up with three two-out RBI hits today, 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.”
Even with the defeat, Grandview advances to its fifth Final Four and third under Henry, who is in his 10th 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 game 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 10th state title.
“We’re treating that first game on Saturday like it’s single-elimination for us, so we’ve got to be ready to go for that first game and go get the title,” Goldy said. “If we play hard and focused for seven innings, we don’t think anyone can beat us.”
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