Huskies roll past Summit, face big second half

EDWARDS — Battle Mountain soccer beat Summit County, 6-0, on Tuesday.

For the record, Tuesday was Sept. 22, one month exactly until the final day of the regular season. In a nice twist, Steamboat Springs just happens to be coming to town that October night.

With the win, the Huskies moved to 5-1 in the 4A Slope, three points ahead of both Eagle Valley and Steamboat Springs, both at 4-1. In a related development, the Devils and Sailors meet up north on Thursday.

To its credit, Battle Mountain looked like the Battle Mountain of old against the Tigers. The Huskies’ passes were crisp, possessions extended and finishes divine. But how does this final month go, particularly with big games on the horizon — at Glenwood Springs on Oct. 6, No. 1 Evergreen coming to town two days later, and, of course, the second go-rounds with Eagle Valley and Steamboat Springs?

‘WORK OUR REAR ENDS OFF’

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“We’ve got a deep squad this year, so in training we’ve got to work our rear ends off, and get after each other and work,” said the Huskies Creek Kamby, who had a great night with two goals and an assist. “If we work as hard as we can, we can go and do what that team did in 2012.”

“I thought today is as complete of a performance as we’ve had in a long time,” Huskies coach David Cope, who doubtless has fond memories of that title team three years ago. “I think Summit’s going to go on and win some games. It was more just about how we played than the opponent. Tonight was pretty special.”

While the Tigers are not the squad it’s been the last two seasons — Summit is quite young compared to previous editions — there was also a bit of payback involved for the Huskies against the defending league champion.

“We’ve just got to build,” Tigers coach Tommy Gogolen said. “The guys haven’t had a lot of varsity experience, so this is all new to them. Good days are ahead. We always get our kids to work hard. That’s something that we can always do, regardless of what the scoreboard says. If they’re working hard, that’s all I can ask.

Early and often

Battle Mountain (6-2 overall) jumped all over the Tigers from the start. Three minutes in, Kamby scored the first of his two, both from Uriel Lopez. David Barajas had the talker on Battle Mountain’s second tally. He took a pass from Erik Solis, took a touch and then put some mustard on his shot into the upper 90 from 35 yards out. Seriously, major league hurlers would like to have movement like that in their stuff.

Kamby to Cody Bahan kept it rolling and the Huskies led, 4-0, at the break after another variation of Lopez to Kamby.

Brandon Rodriguez struck to start the second half and Lopez capped it minutes later.

Meanwhile, Summit’s best opportunity came on a late penalty kick. Huskies goalie Jack Skidmore and the post preserved the shutout

Summit (1-5) is at Delta on Saturday, while the Huskies host Palisade on Tuesday in their Homecoming game. Speaking of Homecoming, Chase Keep has a date after he and his teammates used some body paint in a postgame proposal that was answered in the affirmative.