The Class 5A boys soccer tournament, which began on Thursday, is again the Front Range League’s to win as the conference advanced six of its eight qualified teams into the second round, including defending champion Boulder.
And while the Denver Prep League, with No. 1 and No. 2 Far Northeast, it’s the Centennial League that’s poised to steal the playoff thunder.
The Centennial qualified five teams, and the three that advanced with first-round wins — No. 5 Grandview, No. 9 Arapahoe and No. 10 — are all talented and experienced enough to challenge the Front Range’s vice grip on the trophy, as Boulder and Broomfield have combined to win four of the last five 5A titles.
“I’d be lying if I didn’t say that the Front Range League is the most difficult league in the state right now,” Arapahoe coach Mark Hampshire said. “But this game is so fickle, and all it takes is an odd bounce and a team that’s clicking. Right now, for the three of us Centennial teams, all three of us have a chance to go to the show.”
Centennial champion Grandview (14-2), which won the league by way of a tiebreaker over Arapahoe and Cherry Creek, is paced by junior striker Angelo Mujica and senior keeper Eddie St. Martin for a Wolves team that has its sight set on Dick’s Sporting Goods Park.
“The biggest thing is you have to show up every day, ready to play, and you have to deal with adversity,” Grandview coach Brian Wood said. “The boys were pretty down after losing to Arapahoe early in the season, and we felt the league title was going to slip away from us, then all of a sudden, Creek beat Arapahoe and we were right back in it. So we’ve learned to learn to deal with adversity, and learned how to move on from it.”
As for Hampshire’s Warriors (13-2-1), it’s been business as usual despite the return of only two starters from last season. Forward Cameron Gail is A.B.K.’s spark, as the junior ranks first in 5A in goals (25) and third in points (53), with senior forward Chris Grauberger and senior defender Zach Tripp also providing leadership.
“I like our chances, but we’re a group that has to play well together to win,” Hampshire said. “We’ve had games we’ve been stellar, and things have really clicked, and we’ve had the total opposite, too. It all depends on effort and organization with this crew, and all of our big guns stepping up.”
And at Cherry Creek (10-6), 19th-year head man Chelo Curi, the Centennial’s longest tenured coach, also believes in the feasibility that each of the league’s remaining teams, all in separate quadrants, can advance to the semifinals.
For his Bruins, Curi noted the Go 4 The Goal national tournament in Burlington, Iowa — where Cherry Creek suffered half of its losses — has prepared his team for the state tournament, as did grueling conference matches against Arapahoe and Grandview.
“In the Arapahoe game, we gave away a lead late in the game, so we’ve improved our ability to hold a lead,” Curi said. “From the Grandview game, we learned we need to be better prepared, because all of us played bad that day. And in the out-of-state tournament, we learned to be ready right from the first whistle, because we got scored on in the first minute there.”
There are, of course, marked differences between the three teams — as Wood noted, “Arapahoe’s strength is up front, Creek’s really good in the midfield, and we’re really good in the back” — but each program has bore a common burden to get to this point: having to play against each other.
Only the tournament will tell if that burden prepared Grandview, Arapahoe and Cherry Creek well enough to get them to the second week of November.
