Season C boys soccer champions prepare to defend titles in fall of 2021

Like all athletes who participated in Season C earlier this year, boys soccer players across the state are coming into this fall following the shortest offseason they’ve ever had.

Fairview’s Shane Williams, along with Colorado Academy’s Nico Water, who both won state championships at Weidner Field on May 1, however, actually find that the shorter offseason has helped them entering this fall, rather than fatiguing them.

“It really helped us because we were already fit,” said Waters, who was part of the Mustangs’ 14-0 undefeated run to the state championship in Season C. “We don’t have to run too many extra sprints.”

Williams provided a similar perspective.

“We had a little less than a month off from training,” added Williams, who shut out Cherry Creek, 2-0, in the Class 5A state title game in the spring. “One of the things that really helped us last season is that we never stopped training. We were training from June [2020] until the season started in March [2021].”

Arguably the hardest part of being able to repeat winning a state championship in high school sports is dealing with roster changes. Fairview and Colorado Academy are both coming into this fall having lost their top goal-scorers from the season prior.

“We lost a few key players,” Waters said. “This offseason we’ve really been focusing on getting our top-end players in the right position to help the team out this coming fall.”

Colorado Academy graduated 13 seniors following their state championship victory, which accounted for over half of the roster. Similarly, Fairview had 14 graduates, also the majority of their roster. It will now be time for the younger segment of both clubs to rise to the occasion if these teams want to successfully defend their titles.

“Even though some schools may have had more technical players, we knew how to play together,” Williams said when discussing the Season C championship team. “Every goal we gave up, we scored another one in like five minutes.”

Fairview will get its state title defense started on Thursday against Arvada West, while Colorado Academy will begin its season in just under two weeks, on Aug. 31, against Peak to Peak. Some other big games this season include Fairview’s state championship rematch against Cherry Creek on Sept. 11 and while Colorado Academy might not get a regular-season rematch against Frontier Academy, the Mustangs have a semifinal rematch against KIPP Denver in their regular-season finale on Oct. 18.

Windsor and Crested Butte will also defend the 4A and 2A titles, respectively.