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Sailors girls soccer to host Rifle today

Steamboat’s game could be indicator of season

Luke Graham
Steamboat Springs High School goalie Molly Moore, a junior, tracks the ball during practice Wednesday.
Matt Stensland

If you go

What: Steamboat girls soccer vs. Rifle

When: 6 p.m. today

Where: Gardner Field at Steamboat Springs High School

— A pretty good gauge of how the Steamboat Springs High School girls soccer team will play against Rifle today should come in the first five to 10 minutes.

The league game, and more appropriately the start of the 6 p.m. game at Gardner Field, should give Steamboat coach Rob Bohlmann a pretty good barometer of how his team is playing.

“We have to start sharp from the word ‘go,’” Bohlmann said. “We’re not concerned about Rifle, their record or their past history. Right now, it’s important to play sharp for 80 minutes and really worry about us.”



The Sailors, at 1-1 overall and 0-1 in the Western Slope League, are coming off a 3-1 loss to rival Battle Mountain.

That game, coupled with a previous 2-1 win against Glenwood Springs, served as a way for Bohlmann to assess his team.



But considering that Steam­boat wasn’t particularly sharp against Glenwood or in the first half against Battle Mountain, Bohlmann thinks he’s found one of Steamboat’s early problems.

“Most importantly, we felt like we didn’t have the proper mentality from the opening whistle,” he said. “Aside from the second half (against Battle Mountain), we had gone through three halves where it wasn’t happening, where we weren’t playing good soccer.”

That might be why the start to today’s game is so big for Steamboat.

Rifle soccer doesn’t have the tradition Steamboat has, but the longer the Bears stay in the game, the better they have to like their chances.

“We have to find that attacking mentality and just play Steamboat possession soccer like we can,” Sailors senior Mia Quick said. “We can’t go down to the level of competition we’re playing. I think against Battle Mountain, we got overconfident and stopped driving toward goal. It got sloppy, and everything went downhill from there.”

Despite the loss to Battle Mountain, Bohlmann said he started to like what he was seeing in the second half. Part of that was the urgency in being down a goal, but the other part was Steamboat showing how it can play.

That team, Bohlmann said, needs to show up today right from the start.

“That sets the tone,” he said. “We’ve got to be prepared. It doesn’t matter if it’s Battle Mountain or Rifle, a league game or a nonleague game. We’ve got to learn to instill that proper mentality where the focus is on us. Then the soccer parts come in line and come together.”


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