{"id":1316364,"date":"2019-11-02T14:45:38","date_gmt":"2019-11-02T20:45:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.vaildaily.com\/?p=467651"},"modified":"2019-11-04T10:56:19","modified_gmt":"2019-11-04T17:56:19","slug":"battle-mountain-soccer-routs-littleton-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/battle-mountain-soccer-routs-littleton-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle Mountain soccer routs Littleton, history"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Battle Mountain’s Bryant Ramirez charges forward against Littleton Saturday in Edwards. The Huskies won their first-round playoff game, 4-0.<\/strong>
Chris Dillmann | cdillmann@vaildaily.com<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

EDWARDS \u2014 Call it the Great Exorcism.<\/p>\n

Powered by yellow socks, and a whole lot of Dani Barajas, No. 1-ranked Battle Mountain started the 4A state playoffs with a 4-0 thrashing of Littleton on Saturday morning in Edwards. The Huskies will host Montrose on Tuesday. (The Indians beat Loveland, 2-1, on Saturday.)<\/p>\n

Perhaps more importantly, Battle Mountain erased the ghosts
\nwho had been following them since last fall\u2019s first-round 5-0 elimination at
\nthe hands of Kennedy,<\/p>\n

\n
\n
Battle Mountain\u2019s Ivan Solis keeps his eye on the ball against Littleton Saturday in Edwards. Battle Mountain plays again on Tuesday in the Round of 16.<\/strong>
Chris Dillmann | cdillmann@vaildaily.com<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cLosing to Kennedy affected us,\u201d senior Karsen Williams said. \u201cIt made us stronger to do better next year. It was talked about all season.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barajas had the hat trick and Leo Soto added the coup de grace with a brilliant free kick late, and, given the context of how last season ended, Saturday\u2019s result produced a muted celebration. The Huskies feel that the grand celebration should come later this month.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, they\u2019re about smashing through goals \u2014
\nliterally. Leading up to Saturday\u2019s game, Battle Mountain players wrote down
\ntheir goals on planks of wood and then chopped the boards with their hands.
\n(This is soccer, after all.)<\/p>\n

That included coach David Cope, whose board read, \u201c2019 5,\u201d
\nas in five playoff games in 2019, not to mention a shout out to his favorite
\ncollege soccer player at Southern Methodist University.<\/p>\n

Playing \u201cThe Karate Kid\u201d was a fun team-bonding experience,
\nbut also a good way to burn off the anxiety in the buildup to a
\nmuch-anticipated playoff game.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the playoffs bring that, and it\u2019s OK to be feeling anxious. You just to embrace that,\u201d said coach Cope, whom, we suppose is Mister Miyagi in the \u201cKarate Kid\u201d hypothetical. \u201cOnce you have that first tackle, that first pass, that first shot, you\u2019ll be into the flow completely. It\u2019s natural. Plus with the (snowstorm delay postponing games from Wednesday to Saturday), and Littleton had the same thing, it\u2019s almost been 10 days since we last played. There\u2019s going to be a little tension.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dani goes off<\/h2>\n

Nothing relieves a little tension like Barajas. If you
\nhaven\u2019t noticed yet, the kid is really good at soccer.<\/p>\n

Yes, he upped his season total to 22 goals, but he\u2019s driven by the desire to return to Dick\u2019s Sporting Goods Park, the site of the state championship games.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
Josh Keiser and Battle Mountain are in control all the way against Littleton on Saturday in Edwards. The Huskies won the playoff game, 4-0.<\/strong>
Chris Dillmann | cdillmann@vaildaily.com<\/a><\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\u201cFreshman year, I remember making the finals and I want to
\nmake it again,\u201d said now-senior Barajas. \u201cAnd we want to win it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barajas started things off in the 22nd<\/sup> minute
\nwith a ridiculous shot to the near-side post. It was a low-skipper toward the
\nleft corner and Lions keeper Logan McLoughlin had no chance.<\/p>\n

While dominating the possession, the Huskies weren\u2019t doing
\nso on the scoreboard. As the minutes ticked away during the second half, it
\nbecame nerve-wracking as just one counterattack would level the match and send,
\nat least, the Huskies faithful into \u201cHere we go again\u201d syndrome.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just have to be patient,\u201d Barajas said.<\/p>\n

In fairness, the Huskies know the situation well and have
\nfound the extra goal or goals throughout the season in forging a 15-0-1 record.<\/p>\n

Deliverance came in the 54th<\/sup> minute as Trevino
\nTwiss and Barajas took down the Littleton defense. Twiss broke ankles on his
\nrun and had Barajas on his right. Out the ball went and Barajas is a stone-cold
\nkiller on finishing.<\/p>\n

To make it a hat trick, Barajas cracked a shot from well
\noutside the box in the 61st<\/sup> \u2014 speaking of finishing \u2014 to make it
\n3-0.  Soto iced it with a free-kick
\nstrike, whose spin rate would have had baseball analysts drooling.<\/p>\n

Nice socks<\/h2>\n

Battle Mountain had a new touch to its kit on Saturday. Cope\u2019s better half, Kathleen, liked the pink socks the team wore for breast-cancer awareness last month. In particular, she liked how the Huskies could see each other\u2019s feet in contrast to their home black outfits.<\/p>\n

So Garden Creations, Kathleen\u2019s landscaping business, got
\nthe Huskies gold socks for their playoff run and hosiery is 1-0.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019re always listening to someone from Virginia,\u201d David
\nCope joked about the Cavaliers college basketball team that went from
\nfirst-round upset victim in 2018 to national champion in 2019.<\/p>\n

In fairness, even before last year\u2019s upset, coach Cope has
\nalways dreaded the first round more than most. As he did on Saturday, when his
\nsquads advance through the opener, he always says, \u201ctidy\u201d with a smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think in the long run, it\u2019s more relief than jubilation,\u201d Cope said. \u201cAnother thing with this group is that there\u2019s a quiet sense of purpose. They\u2019re interesting in that way. They are very business-like. I hope they\u2019re having fun and enjoying it because the bar is set so high. We\u2019re really proud of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Vail Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Battle Mountain’s Bryant Ramirez charges forward against Littleton Saturday in Edwards. The Huskies won their first-round playoff game, 4-0.Chris Dillmann | cdillmann@vaildaily.com EDWARDS \u2014 Call it the Great Exorcism. Powered by yellow socks, and a whole lot of Dani Barajas, No. 1-ranked Battle Mountain started the 4A state playoffs with a 4-0 thrashing of Littleton […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1316364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 15:01:17","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1316364"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1316398,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1316364\/revisions\/1316398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1316364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1316364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1316364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}