3A Girls Soccer: No. 1 Colorado Academy Repeats as State Champion

COLORADO SPRINGS – Mission accomplished – again.

Colorado Academy entered the Class 3A state girls’ soccer tournament as the No. 1 seed, and when the tourney concluded the Mustangs were hoisting the championship trophy for the second year in a row.

Loghan Meisner scored two goals to power CA to a 3-1 victory over Timnath in the title match Tuesday evening at Switchbacks Weidner Field.

“Embracing the target,” said Sean Stedeford, who has guided Colorado Academy to five state titles. “We thrive with a target on our back. We enjoy being so-called hunted. It allows us to stay sharp and stay focused. We make little tweaks here and little tweaks there and that keeps us focused on ourselves and not worried about somebody else.

“When the attention is on us, we can focus on ourselves.”

CA finished its season with a 17-1-2 overall record. This was the Mustangs’ seventh girls state soccer crown to go with the ones they won in 1999, 2003, 2014, 2015, 2019 and 2024. Timnath finished its season with a 13-5-2 record. The Cubs were trying to win their first girls soccer championship in school history.

Meisner put the Mustangs up 1-0 by taking the assist from Lyla Kocher and booting the ball into the back of the net at the 20:31 of the first half.

In the second half, No. 11-seeded Timnath showed some grit when Adelyn Clemmer knocked in a goal at 23:36 to tie the game 1-1.

“We always preach to these girls never get too high and never get too low,” Stedeford said. “That was a moment for them to reset and as a coach you can’t ask for a better response than what we did. I don’t think they touched the ball after they scored, until we put it in the back of the net.”

Stedeford is right.

CA’s Meisner answered with a rocket goal less than a minute later to put the Mustangs up 2-1 on another assist from Kocher, her 22nd of the season. It was Meisner’s 12th goal of the year.

“We have been in situations like that before (tied 1-1) and our coach always tells don’t panic,” Meisner said. “We know what to do and we just played our soccer, and we got the next goal which was awesome. We just wanted to play as a team and not focus on the score and focus on us and I think that’s what led to our success. We focused on us.”

The Mustangs kept pressing the action and they went up 3-1 when Kocher sent a 25-yard missile in for a goal with 20:42 remaining.

“Lyla is a baller,” Meisner said. “She had the first two assists, and she is amazing. She practices every day for these moments and that might have seemed like a shocking goal to some people but that is just natural for her.”