CENTENNIAL | The Eaglecrest girls soccer team is under new direction, as athletic director Vince Orlando revealed the hiring of Kari Hamilton on Friday.
Hamilton, a Rangeview High School graduate who most recently was a head coach at Legend, takes over for Greg Watts, who stepped down in a “mutual parting of ways,” according to Orlando. Watts, who led the girls program for the past decade, will remain the head coach of Eaglecrest’s boys soccer team.
In Watts’ final season, the Raptors posted an 8-7 record — including a 3-4 mark in the Centennial League — but it wasn’t quite enough to get them into the 32-team Class 5A state playoffs. The season had some highlights for Eaglecrest, which posted a 2-1 victory over Arapahoe, which went on to make the quarterfinals of the 5A postseason, while it also beat Mullen, a semifinal team in the 4A playoffs.
According to Orlando, Hamilton was a three-time all-conference selection while a player at Rangeview, then moved on to the University of Northern Colorado, where she started 67 of the 70 games she played in. Hamilton went on to a professional career in the now-defunct W-League, playing for both the Fort Collins Force and the Chicago Cobras.
Hamilton entered the ranks of high school coaching as an assistant at Chaparral and Rangeview, then made a few more stops at various levels before she served as head coach at Legend from 2012-15. The Titans went 6-9 in 2015, Hamilton’s last season at the helm.
The Raptors will have a bit of a new look next season as a significant class of nine seniors graduated.
Included in that group was the team’s top three goal scorers in Mattie Alpert (15 goals), Michaela Harshfield (6 goals) and Jordan Zimmerman (4 goals), plus goalkeeper Kaitlyn Garza, who played the majority of the season after an injury to starter Rylee Atteberry.
Alpert and Garza earned All-Centennial League first team honors, while Harshfield was on the second team.
Eaglecrest expects to return Atteberry (a Notre Dame commitment) and senior Nadia Morris — who racked up a team-high 11 assists in her return from a torn anterior cruciate ligament — plus senior Ashley Hartmann and junior Melissa Jung, defenders who made the All-Centennial League second team a year ago.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at 303-750-7555 or sports@aurorasentinel.com. Twitter: @aurorasports. FB: Aurora Prep Sentinel
