Colorado Styxx Gold has a golden guide in busy Pablo Severtson
Pablo Severtson grew up around baseball because his father, Tom Severtson, was a longtime coach and is a former pro scout. His dad won state and national club championships over the course of his decades-long career.
Not much has changed since Pablo’s youth, as the 32-year-old Heritage assistant baseball coach still breathes hardball. Pablo and Tom were both on the Eagles’ coaching staff this season as Heritage continued to assert itself as a Class 5A contender.
Yet it’s on a smaller diamond — and with a different gender — that the 32-year-old Pablo has established himself as one of the best coaches in the state.
Pablo is the head coach of one of Colorado’s top club softball teams — Colorado Styxx Gold 18-U — in addition to his duties as the head softball coach at Heritage. His transition from a small white ball to a bigger yellow sphere is one the 2003 Thomas Jefferson graduate made easily, like his dad did before him.
“My dad played on the national fast-pitch circuit after playing college baseball at UNC and was eventually inducted into the Colorado Softball Hall of Fame, so he knew the game and was able to help me with that transition,” Pablo said. “When I started coaching softball, I coached it just like I did with baseball, but there are those little details in the differences between the games that he really turned me on to.”
With the focus on those details — and an ethos of, “If your best player is your hardest worker, you’ve got a chance to be a great team” — Pablo guided the Styxx to a 98-11 record last season and a 13th-place finish at Triple Crown Nationals in New York.
His club is looking equally potent this year, his third as its coach, with the majority of the 2016 roster having returned.
“We’re trying to duplicate that kind of year, so we’ll see what we’ve got,” Pablo said. “It’s going to take a lot of clutch play from our girls against elite competition at nationals in Austin in July, but I know they’re ready for it.”
The Styxx staff of Emily Bell (Cherokee Trail graduate, Simpson College commit), Taylor Puga (Pueblo West senior) and Rio Sanchez (Erie graduate, Central Arkansas) is rivaled by few in the state.
And their lineup is stacked, too, with clutch players such as outfielder Chloe Knapp (who hit the winning home run in extra innings of the Class 5A title game for Cherokee Trail last fall) and shortstop Lauren Foster (a key component in Valor Christian’s Class 4A championship three-peat) complementing Eaglecrest senior first baseman Kailey Wilson, who is perhaps the best power hitter in the state.
The Styxx will continue to compete alongside, and often against, an array of other tough Colorado 18-U teams throughout tournaments leading into Triple Crown Nationals.
Triple Crown Stars Gold — which finished ninth at nationals last year — headlines that list, with other teams such as Colorado Stars Burns Gold and Next Level Gold also capable of making noise in prime-time tournaments.
As for Pablo, he remains focused on getting his players ready for college — and, of course, continuing to progress toward his own coaching dream.
“Between Heritage baseball and softball and everything I do with the Styxx, I pretty much live at the diamond,” Pablo said. “Everyone knows my goal is to be a head baseball coach in high school, and then the ultimate goal is to coach in college somewhere. If my players keep buying in to me, I’ll get there sooner than later.”
Kyle Newman: 303-954-1773 knewman@denverpost.com or @Kylenewmandp