The Manitou Springs High School baseball team’s season begins with tryouts on Feb. 26 and their first game is against Jefferson Academy on March 12. The team is going to be focusing more heavily on leadership and how they play the game this season as they have many more returning seniors this year than they have had in the past years. 

Head coach, Brandon DeMatto, is focused on making sure that the team is playing the game correctly and not getting lost in the big picture. “Moving into the season, I’m really focused on helping our kids stay accountable to playing the game the right way,” DeMatto said.  Sometimes, when there are so many things that a coach has to be focused on during a season, we can easily lose track of the things that seem so small, but make a huge difference in the grand scheme of your team’s success.” 

Catcher Jake Thomson(12) is looking forward to the season because all of the seniors have played together for a long time and there is new talent in the program. “This season will be great with all the seniors and we have so much young talent in our program, that we can mentor the younger kids and help build our program up for future years,” Thomson said. “Our chemistry is also great because we’ve played with each other for so long that we’re in sync with each other and can play clean baseball.”

The team is welcoming Jeremiah Johnson to the coaching staff this season as the new JV assistant coach. “We have lost Coach Chris Goodloe as our JV Head Coach. He will be replaced by last year’s JV assistant coach, Kurt Dunaway,” DeMatto said.” We also welcome a new JV Assistant Coach, Jeremiah Johnson. He has helped us in our youth development summer baseball program for the past several years. He will be a great addition to our staff.”

This year the team’s goal is to get back to the 3A state championship after falling short in regionals last year against The Academy.  “Everyone has the same goal and that’s to win a state championship. We want nothing more than to win a championship for our school and a  smaller goal for us is to make it to the state championship tournament, since we have

DeMatto’s goal is also to get back to the state tournament this year in hopes of making it further than last season. “We set out as far back as November of 2023 to not only get back to Greeley for the Colorado 3A State Tournament, but to advance into the second weekend of that tournament,” DeMatto said. “In speaking with our players, they are extremely motivated to go out and do what it takes to get to that point. If you can make it to that second weekend in the State Tournament, anything can happen from there.”