Baker & Barker: Two of CHS best ever
Individually, Heather Baker and Nataly Barker are perhaps two of the most talented and highly decorated girls athletes ever produced at Colfax High School. Together, Baker and Barker pooled their talents to help the Colfax High girls basketball program reach a high level that some thought could never be attained again after the schools back-to- state championship seasons in the early 1980s.
So it is fitting that both of the multi-talented former Colfax High standouts will be inducted into the Colfax High Hall of Fame on the same evening when the school's Class of 2006 Hall of Fame is presented on Saturday, April 22 in the school's Performing Arts Center.
Baker, who is now Heather Baker Chapman, and Barker, who is now Nataly Barker Hollingsworth, will be joined in the induction ceremonies by Susan Prince, Ken and Beth Quinn and the 1986 Sac-Joaquin Section CIF championship football team.
On the basketball court, the duo were both three time all-Golden Empire League selections and helped the Jim Ryan-coached Lady Falcons to an unprecedented three straight Sac-Joaquin Section CIF championships in 1987, 1988 and 1989.
Nicknamed the "Killer Bs", Baker and Barker were both Sacramento Bee all-Metro and Sacramento Union All-City selections as juniors and seniors and were both tagged to the all-Northern California team following their senior seasons. In 1988-89, the duo led Colfax to a record of 31-4 and a final No. 6 rating in Cal-Hi Sports' state Div. IV top ten.
Barker who has some of the top hurdle times in school history still holds the school mark of 5-7 in the high jump and qualified for the CIF state track meet three straight years. She is the only athlete in CHS history - male or female to hold that distinction.
When the pair graduated in June of 1989, not surprisingly, they shared the school's Outstanding Senior Girls Athlete Award."They were two good ones both on and off the court and track," said Ryan.
Baker went on to play four years of basketball on scholarship at Sacramento State while Barker played three years on scholarship at the University of San Francisco. Their paths actually crossed twice in college when they played against each other. Barker and her husband Greg live in Maine she fulfilled a lifelong dream recently when she went back to college in Maine and graduated with a degree in English from the University of Maine (Gold Country Media).
