(Stephen Priest/CHSAANow.com)
AURORA — For one half of play, Cherokee Trail was holding its own in a rivalry showdown of Centennial League foes at Legacy Stadium. The Cougars found themselves down only two at half to the CHSAANow.com No. 1-ranked Cherry Creek Bruins.
But then the second half happened and the floodgates opened, as the defending state champion Bruins produced 14 goals, pouring it on the Cougars in Niagara Falls-type fashion.
A seven-goal third quarter combined with another seven in the fourth led Cherry Creek to an 18-3 demolition of the previously undefeated Cougars.
“It’s a mindset, it’s what we are trying to do to get it moving around,” junior Alec Bildstein said. “We are just trying to get as many guys involved as we can and just move the ball. It’s not just one player moving this team, it’s the whole team coming together, working together to get this going.”
There’s no denying the team effort from the Bruins (4-1 overall), as Friday night 13 different players found the back of the net. Four players had at least two goals, but it was junior Nate Miller who led the way with a hat trick.
One explanation behind what may have inspired such an explosive offensive performance could be the tough loss the Bruins suffered the night before to Torrey Pines (Calif.), in which Cherry Creek didn’t come close to meeting their 15 goal per game average.
“We wanted to play with enthusiasm, you know we had a tough loss last night,” Cherry Creek head coach Bryan Perry said. “Our guys put a lot into that game and we weren’t able to pull it out and that’s the way it goes sometimes and we had to bounce back from that. So I just told make sure you go out and own (the game against Cherokee Trail) and enjoy it.”
The Bruins without question took that advice from their coach to heart, as in the second half they did in fact own the Cougars (4-1) in pretty much all facets of the game, but most noticeably in possession and time of possession.
“We could not move our ball from the defensive end to the offensive end, that was the biggest thing,” Cougars coach Danny Bowman said. “We couldn’t get a groundball. We couldn’t clear the ball to get it to the offensive end. I don’t know if our offense even touched the ball in that third quarter. … They capitalized and scored after every possession and we couldn’t bounce back from it.”
Cherokee Trail did in fact touch the ball in the third, as they had two possessions, but both were very short-lived.
The Bruins on the other hand just kept scoring in bunches as time and time again they’d rattle off two goals no more than two minutes apart from each other.
“It just comes down to keeping the enthusiasm up, as I said it’s a tough way to lose a game the way we did last night, and so we got a great season ahead of us,” Perry said. “We’ve got to keep the enthusiasm up and the positive vision and not let a stumbling block stop you. … Teams lose games all the time and that’s part of the deal.”