AURORA | The Smoky Hill boys soccer team put the finishing touches on its third straight Centennial League championship Wednesday, but made this one stand out above the others.
The Buffaloes’ 6-0 victory against visiting Overland at The Swamp gave coach Kersten Mullan’s team a perfect 7-0 run through the league and pushed them to 13-2 overall.
Walter Prince scored a pair of goals and had an assist and Zach Clemons, Kevin Del Mazo, John Herrmann and Mitchell Khoshdel — also seniors — also had goals as Smoky Hill rolled on Senior Day.
Senior Andrew Franceschi posted his ninth shutout of the season to beat the Trailblazers, who dropped to 7-6 overall and 2-5 in the Centennial League.
Smoky Hill now awaits its seeding in the upcoming Class 5A playoffs, which is expected to be somewhere in the top five in the 32-team field.
Courtney Oakes is Sports Editor of the Aurora Sentinel. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter: @aurorasports. FB: Aurora Prep Sentinel
Smoky Hill 6, Overland 0
Score by halves:
Overland 0 0 — 0
Smoky Hill 3 3 — 6
Smoky Hill goals: Walter Prince 2, Zach Clemons, Kevin Del Mazo, John Herrmann, Mitchell Khoshdel; Smoky Hill assists: Del Mazo, Kevin Edgar, Prince.
FIELD HOCKEY
Sure Smoky is a very good soccer team, but with 6 days rest since their last game and playing a team that was playing it’s fifth game in nine days who didn’t have much left in the tank it’s not surprising the outcome. The Blazers were put in that scheduling predicament due to Cherry Creek, Mullen and Smoky Hill not wanting to play when they were originally scheduled forcing all three of those games to be rescheduled into the last five days. It seems Smoky Hill was opposed to playing two games in a row Sept 24 and 25 so they opted to move Overland to the end of the season with nearly a week of rest. They should have had their senior day vs. Cherry Creek on 9/9 but no, they felt they should have a weeks rest before they play that final home game setting themselves up for a game like yesterday. I’m not saying Overland would have won yesterday as I agree that Smoky Hill is a very talented team but that score line is not indicative of the Blazers team. That team still has an overall winning record and hopefully a positive result today in a game vs. Denver West just may give them an opportunity to get into the playoffs. If not, it has been a wonderfully successful season for a brand new coach and a hard working team.