Battle Mountain girls soccer shuts out Vail Mountain School for first win of the season

Battle Mountain girls soccer coach Lauren Lux said her team took a few “fixable lessons” from their 5-2 loss to Steamboat Springs in Tuesday’s season opener. One was chemistry on the attack.

“It was nice to see that kind of continue today,” Lux said after the Huskies’ 5-0 win over Vail Mountain School on Thursday in Vail. Battle Mountain poured in four second-half goals against the Rangers to improve to 1-1 on the year.

“I just like seeing (us) add additional layers to our attack,” the second-year coach continued. “So we’re not just looking at two players to combine and create magic, but how do our outside backs get involved?And I thought they were continuing to identify opportunities to do that.”

Evelyn Steinberg scored the team’s lone first-half goal, but the Huskies controlled possession throughout the opening 40 minutes. The visitors limited touches by University of Denver signee Solveig Moritz, who scored 16 goals in 10 games for the Rangers last spring.

“Today the whole goal was to keep the field as small as possible,” said Vail Mountain coach Theo Marston. Inexperience on the defensive side, however, made getting the ball upfield difficult, the first-year coach noted.

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“So at halftime, (we) had to adjust the way we play — to play more direct, more long balls, as opposed to what we want to try to build towards, (which) is being comfortable on the ball and being able to play possession out.”

Even with the adjusments, Battle Mountain’s second-half execution overwhelmed the Rangers. Two minutes after one of Moritz’s few looks — a left-footer that went wide left at the 48th minute — Thea Armistead tapped a breakaway shot right over Vail Mountain’s goalie from just inside the box. With 25:41 to go, Armistead dished it to Steinberg on the wing. The junior’s shot looked to be wide right, but Vail Mountain’s Weston Phillips — charging back for the block — accidentally deflected it with her foot into her own net to give the Huskies a 3-0 advantage. Lux said Armistead and fellow captain Lesly Castillo set the tone for their team.

“I’m so thankful to have them in the program,” the coach commented. “They set such a great example in terms of their approach to the game, their work ethic during matches and training and then their execution.”

Steinberg and Armistead led the team with 19 and 18 points, respectively, last year as the Huskies finished 7-6-3 overall and 4-1-1 in league play. Battle Mountain fell to Eagle Valley in the final game of the regular season to cede the Western Slope title to the Devils. This year, the Huskies bring a blend of young talent and veteran leadership. Three freshmen — including Olivia Goldberg, who scored on a long range bomb in the 61st minute on Thursday — are already getting significant minutes.

“Last season was kind of happening with maybe two players at a time, and now it’s really like four or five players overall,” Lux said. “I really see the potential in us being a very fast, dangerous front.”

With 15 minutes left, fellow freshman Emily Sosa passed it to Armistead, who aimed a right-footer perfectly to the bottom left pocket from the top of the 18-yard box to seal the deal. Battle Mountain improved to 2-3-1 against their valley rivals going back to 2017.

Vail Mountain School, which went 8-4-2 last year but graduated seven seniors, will have a couple weeks to regroup before hosting Salida on March 24. Despite being shut out, Marston identified several positives from the performance.

“What I said to the girls is this is kind of the first piece of our puzzle,” the first-year head coach said. “We’ve got a whole bunch of ski racers who haven’t been at practice at all yet and some that are slowly coming back. So, we take from this what we can and build from what we saw today.”

Battle Mountain returned to the pitch in Glenwood Springs on Saturday and will host Denver East next Monday. While the offense sparkled against Vail Mountain, Lux said the defense has a key role in the team’s emerging storyline as well.

“Every game we get a little more comfortable in terms of our positioning on the defensive side of things,” she said. “And that’s kind of how I see our identity building.”