Falcon High baseball #3 in the state

The 2024 Falcon High School baseball team was the first team in program history to qualify for a trip to the state championship.

The Falcons’ goal for the tournament was a state championship, but instead they finished a hard-fought third in the 4A division.

The Falcons’ dream season ended on May 31 with a 5–3 loss to the Pueblo County Hornets, a team they had already defeated in the first round of the championship, which took place at the Air Force Academy’s Erdle Field.

“Honestly, we felt great going into the last game against County. But they just played a spectacular game,” Falcon head baseball coach Brandon Stegman said. “I have the utmost respect for those kids in that program and their coaching staff. They’re doing a great job.”

Stegman couldn’t point to a single performance lapse that would have changed the outcome for his team. “When you get to that level, somebody’s got to lose and somebody’s got to win,” he said. “And that day, we didn’t get the bounce we needed, or we didn’t make the pitch we needed in the time we needed it, or we didn’t get the timely hit we needed to get it in. And that’s the way it goes in a baseball game.”

As noted above, Falcon, seeded No. 6 in the tournament, defeated seeded No. 3 Pueblo County 5-4 in the first round and defeated seeded No. 2 Golden 7-2 in the second round. Falcon lost to seeded No. 5 Holy Family in the next round and was eliminated after losing to Pueblo County in the fourth round. With the Falcons out of the running, the top two teams, Pueblo County and Holy Family, advanced to the final round where Holy Family took the state title with a 13-6 victory.

Stegman said, “Does it hurt that we didn’t make the final two? Yeah, but I walked off the field knowing that my guys did everything they could do, my coaches did everything they could do, and I, as a leader, did everything I could do for our school, our kids, our parents. I just walked off with a smile.”

Stegman first turned his attention to the state when he was hired at Falcon High School in the summer of 2019, where he began his first high school coaching job after 20 years as a youth and private coach.

From day one, he told his athletes (many of whom played as seniors this season), “We’re going to go to state and we’re going to make a lot of noise!” Stegman said, “And they really took that to heart.”

Making noise is exactly what they did. Stegman said they were ranked in the top 25 in the entire state almost every week during the preseason. The team may have played under the radar in the past, but Stegman encouraged his team that this year they were not “sneaking up on anyone” and that they needed to prepare to go all the way.

In January, the team competed in an indoor six-on-six league in Pueblo as a benchmark to determine their strengths and weaknesses for the season. Stegman has no doubt that that strategy, coupled with the team’s growing experience season after season, and the fire stoked by last season’s regional loss to Cheyenne Mountain, helped propel them to the state tournament this time around.

But more importantly, he credits the trip to state to the outstanding team of athletes and the support of the Falcon community.

Stegman sang the praises of his baseball players, and overwhelming pride brought tears to his eyes. He said, “I’m super excited to see what these guys are going to do at the next level, you know, not just as baseball players, but as husbands, as fathers, as employees — they’re just those kinds of kids.”

“The culture that Coach Stegman has built is second to none. We would run through a wall for that guy,” senior Isiah Sadorus said. “I can’t wait to see what this team does in the future. They believe, we believe, the community believes. That’s good stuff.”

Seven of the players on the 2024 Dream Team graduated this spring, and all but one will play baseball in college next year.

“Falcon is really blessed to have the type of kids we have,” Stegman said. “And the things our community has done to support our high school athletes has been really special to see.”

The support from the people of Falcon this season was unlike anything Stegman, a Falcon resident since 2006, has ever seen. That spirit carried his team to its goal. “We had home games where I bet 500 people were there,” he said. “It was standing room only, and that just never happens at a high school baseball game.”

“The support from the community was amazing,” senior Chase Kessler said. “It was such an amazing feeling to see our field filled at regionals and then to see it all standing at our state meets. Knowing we had so much support made it even more fun.”

The entire school took on the team’s motto, “NOW,” and even the teachers dyed their hair to show their support.

“It just felt like everybody came together a little bit more this season,” Stegman said. “We had a great coaching staff that kept my guys healthy. . . We have executives, we have board members, we have business owners, we have community members. All those guys were there with us.”

“We have some unfinished business,” said Jaxon Schleper, who will graduate in 2025 and return to the team next year. “This past season was amazing. We got to go on the field with High Plains Little League, we had school mascots at games, we had ceremonial first pitches, we had some great moments and our community played a huge part in that.”

Falcon High School Assistant Baseball Coaches: Rodney Biechler and David Kester

Graduates:

• JP Cates
• Those who play baseball in college:
• Uriah Maestas — Benedictine College in Kansas
• Chase Kessler — Dodge City Community College in Kansas
• Rowan Kliniske — Garden City Community College in Kansas
• Isiah Sadorus — Colby Community College
• Jayden Colclasure — Garden City Community College
• Josh Nemeth — MidAmerica Nazarene University in Kansas

Unfortunately, the NFH did not have enough space to list all the names on this year’s baseball roster. So congratulations to the entire Falcon High baseball team and coaches.