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It’s Deja vu for Devils booters in regional

Nate Peterson

The Eagle Valley soccer team will be looking for a little payback when it travels to Colorado Springs today to play Fountain Valley in a state-seeding game at 11 a.m.

Last year, the Devils had a long bus ride back home after they lost to the Danes in overtime, in the exact same postseason matchup.

“We’re in the same position we were last year, and ironically we’re playing the exact same team,” said Devils’ coach Brian Large. “We want some revenge because they beat us in PKs in overtime after we outplayed them for most of the game.”



The Devils come into the regional as the fourth-place finisher in the 3A Western Slope League, finishing the regular season at 7-6-1.

“We’re really happy just to be in the playoffs. We’ve let a couple get away from us in the last couple of weeks,” said senior captain Tommy Migchelbrink, who is sixth in 3A scoring with 19 goals on the year. “Last year, it was a really close game against them [Fountain Valley]. Hopefully, we’ll prevent it from getting that close.”

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The Danes finished fourth in the 3A Tri-Peaks League with a 7-4-2 mark. Their leading goal scorer for the regular season is senior Max Winkler with 11.

On paper, the two teams appear to be evenly matched – defensively, the Danes have allowed six fewer goals than Eagle Valley, and, offensively, the Devils have netted six more goals than Fountain Valley.

“They don’t have any really big goal scorers, but they play real good defense and they seem to get by,” said Migchelbrink.

If the Devils do win, they earn a spot in the 3A state playoffs. If they lose, it’s deja vu all over again. Large likes his teams chances, though.

“Last year, we dominated the game. We just weren’t able to finish. That pretty much sums up what we’ve done this year. All those games that we lost were very close though, and we could have won,” said Large. “The positive side is that we created a whole lot of opportunities to score (this season), and that’s going to help us on Saturday. We are going to stick a lot of goals in the net.”

Nate Peterson is a sports writer for the Vail Daily. He can be reached at (970) 949-0555, ext. 608 or via npeterson@vaildaily.com.


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