Ralston Valley shuts out Chatfield on the pitch

LAKEWOOD — The most colorful cleats took the spotlight Tuesday night at Lakewood Memorial Field.

Sporting his highlighter yellow Nike cleats … Ralston Valley sophomore Keegan Ulvedal scored the lone goal in a 1-0 victory for the Mustangs over Chatfield.

“It was a really good goal,” Ralston Valley coach Jamie Scarcliff said. “He kept it down. A lot of the time we shank that over the goal because they get excited and get under the ball. It was a great ball played by Kieran McCarron.”

Scarcliff added that she thought Ulvedal was a more dangerous offensive threat in the second half after the scoreless first half in the Class 5A Jeffco League game.

“We got the corner kick and I was the guy who was going up to press the keeper,” Ulvedal said of his goal in the 44th minute. “The ball came up and I popped off. It was a free header in.”

Ralston Valley (6-6-1, 4-1-1 in league) got back to .500 overall as the Mustangs attempt to make the 32-team 5A state tournament. Ralston Valley was sitting in the 36th spot in the RPI before the victory over Chatfield (6-5, 3-1).

“We are sitting kind of on the boarder right now,” Scarcliff said of the Mustangs’ postseason chances. “We didn’t take care of some of our games earlier in the season with our non-league games. Playing Lakewood on Friday will be a big game for us. We just have to take it one game at a time. Each game is important to put us as high as we can.”

Ralston Valley closes out its regular season against Bear Creek on Oct. 21 and then await its playoff fate.

“It wasn’t the prettiest win for us. We have struggled the past few games playing constantly and showing up for the full 80 minutes,” Ralston Valley coach Jamie Scarcliff admitted. “We’ll take the goal. We’ll take the win. They battled until the end.”

It was the first conference loss for Chatfield and ended a 4-game winning streak. The Chargers still have four league game remaining — Bear Creek, Columbine, Lakewood and Valor Christian — over the next to weeks.