Season Preview: Frontier League

Brad Cochi

November 29, 2019 @ 11:56 AM

With the 2019-20 girls basketball season right around the corner, let’s take a look back/forward at how things shook out and what to look forward to in each of Colorado’s conferences. Here’s a snapshot of the Frontier League.   How it all shook out in ’18-19 Four Frontier League teams – The Academy (22-2), Middle Park (16-6), Lake County (16-7) and Arrupe Jesuit (12-10) – finished last season with winning records. Only The Academy, however, ran the table in the Frontier League to claim the Frontier League regular-season championship.   Which playoff team advanced the farthest? The Academy entered the Class 3A state tournament as the No. 7 overall seed and won fairly convincingly over Brush in the first round. The Wildcats, however, fell in the second round with a 65-50 defeat at the hands of No. 10 Centauri.   A few returning players to watch Mikylah Espinosa, 2022, 5-8, G, The Academy Espinosa showed up as a freshman in 2018-19 and led the entire league in scoring with 16 points per game. She was also credited with 6.2 steals and 1.7 blocks per game, and returns this winter as potentially the most influential player in the Frontier League. Fellow 2022 Aryanna Perez also returns after averaging 10.7 points and 3.7 steals per game.   Felisha Chavez, 2021, 5-7, G, DSST: Montview Second in the league in scoring last season, Chavez ended her sophomore campaign averaging 15.9 points and 2.9 steals. Having her back as a junior should go a long way towards the Knights improving on last year’s 10-11 record. Returning other players like Natalie Smink (2020) and Leah Hill (2022) will also help.   Arianna Drake, 5-6, G, Sheridan According to her stats on MaxPreps, Drake was a double-double machine for an 8-15 Rams team last season. An excellent rebounder, Drake also averaged 14.6 points, 3.1 steals and 1.2 blocks per game. Sheridan also has a solid returning sophomore in Emily Sanchez, who averaged 8.8 points per game as a freshman in ’18-19.   A quick, early look to ’19-20 The Academy rolled through the league last season and it doesn’t look like the ’18-19 Wildcats were a one-hit wonder. Led in scoring by two freshmen, The Academy also did not graduate a single one of its top 10 scorers, and lost a total of just two seniors. Runner-up Middle Park also has some intriguing players like Katie Trail (2021) coming back and Kaytlin Sprague (2021) returns to the Lake County Panthers, but both teams graduated a lot of seniors. The Academy appears to be the early favorite at this point.