The Vail Daily
| Tuesday, May 21, 2013 | C17
HUSKIES SOCCER
GRABS THE CROWN
By Chris Freud cfreud@vaildaily.com
penalty kick against him ylor@vaildaily.com ball, stopping the second Dominique Taylor | dta three penalty kicks to Espinoza dives for the n ing istia sav by Chr e per gam kee the in win Battle Mounta rgreen. Espinoza helped Eve in e gam a ing dur by Evergreen one saved by Evergreen.
So did anything big happen this year at Battle Mountain?
There were plenty of memorable moments in Huskies sports in 2012-13, but, let’s face it, this year was all about Battle Mountain boys soccer. This was the dream season — league title, 15-0 regularseason record, revenge over the bitterest of postseason foes in ridiculous fashion, and victory in the state championship game in a whiteout in Denver. Yeah, all that really happened. At the beginning of the season, were they going to be good? Sure. The Huskies were coming off a 14-2-2 season, only the third appearance in the program’s history in the state quarterfinals, and had lost only two seniors to graduation. Great? I did not have the mortal-lock feeling that I had
before the 2006 Battle Mountain volleyball or 2007 Huskies cross country seasons, which just happen to be the school’s last two state titles. The Huskies still needed to grow, as individuals and as a unit, and that may be the lasting legacy of this crew. The exceptional individual talents of this group — and there was a boatload of skill here — formed into an iron will which said collectively, “We’re doing this.”
The regular season • Battle Mountain beats Montrose, 2-1, in the opener. Huskies David Cope and I do our basic interview and then talk off the record as we normally do. I ask, “Do you think you can go 15-0?,” as the Indians looked like one of the toughest teams one the schedule. Cope replies, “Yes.” You have to remember this is Cope, not say David Joyce (football, 2011) or Ken Bielski (hockey,