AURORA – In a pair of Class 4A semifinals on Wednesday night at Legacy Stadium, No. 2 Mullen cruised past No. 6 Battle Mountain and No. 1 Northfield emerged from an all-Denver Public League battle with No. 4 Denver North. The championship game is now set and Mullen, which hasn’t won since 2011, and Northfield, which has never even been in the postseason before this year, will square off for the title.
Friday’s Class 4A championship game will begin at 8 p.m. at Switchbacks Weidner Field in Colorado Springs.
The Mullen boys soccer team was understandably disappointed at not qualifying for a shrunken postseason during Season C, knowing it was easily talented enough to compete.
So, the Mustangs have been making up for lost time in 2021.
On Wednesday night in the Class 4A state semifinals, No. 2 Mullen won 3-0 over No. 6 Battle Mountain and punched its ticket to the championship game. When the Mustangs take the pitch at Switchbacks Weidner Field on Saturday, they will get a long-awaited chance to play for their first title since 2011.
“It feels really good. I think we were coming out this year with a different mentality and we wanted to prove everybody wrong,” Mustangs senior Eli Kerschen said. “This team just loves to compete and I think that’s why we’re here, honestly. We know what happened last year. It’s in the past, but I think we wanted to come out and show everybody we belong here.”
Kerschen assisted teammate Andrew DeBerardinis, who scored to open the scoring in the 28th minute. Jack Sargent scored the Mustangs’ second goal in the 36 minute, also assisted by Kerschen. With a 2-0 lead at halftime, Sargent added a third goal for the Mustangs six minutes into the second half.
“I thought both teams came out a little nervous,” Mullen head coach Matt Degitis said. “I thought that we could have been cleaner early on. We played conservatively early on to eradicate some of that and I think the boys settled into the game nicely. I thought we had some real nice opportunities on frame early that we just didn’t convert on but we were knocking on the door. And then to go in on the first one was just magnificent.”
In Saturday’s title match, Mullen, which has 12 shutout victories and has outscored its opponents 88-7 this fall, will also be playing for the program’s second overall boys soccer championship.
(1) Northfield 1, (4) Denver North 0
Quite the crowd turned out for an all-Denver Prep League semifinal between No. 1 Northfield and No. 4 Denver North on Wednesday night, and the contest they came to see didn’t disappoint.
At the end of a fast-paced rematch of a DPL rivalry from the regular season, the top-seeded Nighthawks emerged as the victors and will play in the Class 4A state championship game on Friday at Switchbacks Weidner Field. Reaching the final game of the 2021 season will be an opportunity for the DPL-champion Nighthawks (18-0) to complete an undefeated season and capture their program’s first state championship.
With all that’s on the line for the Nighthawks heading into Friday’s title match, it’s hard to believe this is just the four-year-old program’s first time ever playing in the postseason at all.
“First playoff, first league title, first everything,” Nighthawks head coach Jason Keever said. “I’ve known for seven years since I took over this program in 2015 – before we even had a field – that we could do something meaningful and it would take about seven years. Four years ago when these boys came in, I knew they could do something special. It’s taken time, they’ve learned probably more tough lessons than any high school team I can think of and how in the heck it this our first playoff?
“They’re made for this.”
Facing a team the Nighthawks defeated 3-2 during the regular season, Northfield senior Ben Kiley scored the game’s first and only goal on a looping 34th-minute free kick that put the Nighthawks in front of the Denver North Vikings (15-1-3), who finished runners-up at state last season.
“We knew it was going to be electric tonight,” Keever said. “We also knew we were the better team, but the better team doesn’t always win. So, we knew we had to win the midfield and if we put the ball down in play, we would be successful tonight. It took some brilliance individually and then a collective effort defensively. I’m proud of the boys.”