TIGERS READY FOR TAKE TWO
Erie better prepared for second stint in fierce Front Range League
Of late, junior Mason Guven’s love of the game has suffocated inside a vacuum bag.
In his first season with Erie’s boys soccer team, Guven said he is ready to rediscover his passion for the sport after the stresses of performing and winning on an MLS NEXT academy squeezed out some of the joy from it.
As the new guy ahead of the team’s opener against Summit Friday, he said he already feels at home.
“They’re super welcoming to me,” he noted after a morning practice at the school earlier in the week. “They’re just a bunch of cool guys that like playing soccer.”
The expectation is they’ll play it at a high level this fall.
In their second season in the state’s prestigious Front Range League, the Tigers are expecting to take another step forward after they went 8-8 overall and 4-3 as the only Class 4A team in the league.
While a year ago, they won more than not inside their North Division — they lost big to the division’s juggernauts, Fort Collins (8-1) and Fossil Ridge (5-0).
The league’s crossover tournament with the area teams in the South didn’t go much better.
Fairview (5-1) and Boulder (8-0) had little trouble with them.
“The hopes are to be better than last year. The hopes are that now we’ve seen what there is to offer, we know we can compete,” Erie coach Jeff Vigil said of the FRL. “There were a few games last year where I feel like we took off. The Fossil Ridge game is an example of that. We didn’t show up and got our butts kicked.”
Everyone out for the team this fall — an astounding 80 kids —
knows the message. Sustained focus will be key.
“We learned we can beat anyone if we show up,” senior midfielder Tyler Hoffman said. “The league’s big and we play a lot of really good teams, but I feel we can compete with anyone in the state. I think we’re going to have a bounce-back year.”
Hoffman, who is also the football team’s kicker, and Utah transfer Jacoby Latessa fronted a talented attack on the pitch in 2022, combining for 19 goals and 11 assists
Latessa — who his coach felt got frustrated with the added focus of defenses as the season progressed — said, among other things, he’s learned to tame his friendly trash talk on the field.
He grinned, “Just kind of keep to yourself and play your game and make sure you pass it around and not make any of the other team mad at you.”
That pairing will get the addition of Guven, who’d previously been a club-only player with Real Colorado.
Behind them is defensive captain and fan favorite Joey Knoll, pegged at 5-foot-6, per his coach. Coaches and teammates absolutely rave about him.
“Nothing gets past him,” Hoffman said.
In goal is senior Peyton Portsche, who averaged more than six saves per game in 2022 when Erie was eventually knocked out by eventual champ Northfield in the opening round of the 4A tournament.