Balanced cohesive roster guides Blazers to championship game

Erick Starkey
Posted 5/26/17

A roster full of five starting seniors and this year’s 3A Underclassman of the Year helped propel the Torrington Trailblazers to their first appearance in the state championship game.

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Balanced cohesive roster guides Blazers to championship game

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TORRINGTON – A roster full of five starting seniors and this year’s 3A Underclassman of the Year helped propel the Torrington Trailblazers to their first appearance in the state championship game.
“I thought that the biggest key to this season was making the kids come together as a team,” coach Jeshua Arnusch said. “With 31 athletes finishing the season, we definitely had a lot of different personalities and kids who have different interests than one another. I thought that our captains did a great job of incorporating everyone, while holding everyone to the same level of accountability.”
Nathan Stitt shined on the pitch this spring and was rewarded by being named both all-state and underclassman of the year. He filled up his stat sheet, racking up 19 goals and 9 assists. Heading into the state tournament, he ranked second in 3A in goals and third in assists.
One of Torrington’s seniors, A.J. Shields, continually joined Stitt on the attack, accounting for nine goals and seven assists. Before the final tournament of the year, he was tied for fourth in the state in assists and ninth in scoring.
Shields was the only senior that routinely saw action in the front of Torrington’s formation, with the other four starting in the back. Cole Morel, Garrett Cooper and Chase Berguson took up three of the four spots in the defensive line. Morel and Cooper were giants in the center of the defense, while Berguson played on the outside and regularly made runs up the sideline to join in on the attack.
Rounding out the seniors, Tyler Ring spent most of his time in the goal. He racked up 85 saves this season. Heading into the state tournament, he’d logged 68 saves, ranking him eighth in class 3A.
Ring also spent some time in the field, putting two shots into the opposite net for the first two goals of his career. Ring’s fellow seniors that start in the back joined in on the scoring. Morel, Cooper and Berguson all had a goal to their credit this season and Cooper and Berguson each added an assist.

“Our seniors and leaders came in and led by example from day one,” Arnusch said. “They showed everyone around them that if your practice hard and right, it transfers to your games. From day one, I told the team that we coaches wanted them to go out to practice every day and whoop their friends, because that only makes both players better in the end. I felt that the upperclassmen lived everyday by that motto.”
The Blazers fielded a mix of sophomores and juniors to finish out their roster. Sophomore Link Jirasart was third on the team in scoring, netting eight goals this season, while adding two assists. Junior Anthony Munoz contributed four goals for the Blazers.
Juniors Devin Flores and Ethan Creagar joined Stitt in the middle of the formation for much of the season. The duo combined for 12 assists, with seven coming from Creagar, who tied for second-best in the assist column for Torrington. He also had three goals and Flores chipped in one of his own.
“From the beginning of the year, it was clear that we had some great athletes, we just needed to fine tune a lot of raw soccer skills and we rolled with who was playing the best from game to game,” Arnusch said.
The Blazers faced adversity this season, including the injury bug. That allowed for several younger players to take the pitch for the varsity squad. Trace English, Braden Mechem, Nate Gutierrez and Tristen Kingsley all played quality minutes throughout the season.
“With the in mind, I though that coach (Gabe) Bartlett did a great job of grooming our JV guys to be ready for varsity,” Arnusch said. “I think that is something that was huge because a lot of those guys that started the year with coach Bartlett finished the year playing quality minutes at state and regionals because they got to shine when other players were hurt.”
As a team, the Blazers scored 44 goals heading into the state tournament, which was five behind Lander, who had 49 during the regular season. Torrington allowed 16 goals during the regular season, putting them sixth in the class. Eight of those goals came when Ring took the field as a position player and the Blazers adjusted their lineup.
“In our Wyoming play, excluding the tournament (in Worland), we had a goal differential of 37-7,” Arnusch said. “I am super proud of that because it shows how well defensively we played. We worked a lot on defensive rotations and pushing players wide while containing them.”
Looking at how the Blazers stacked up individually against others from around the state. Torrington had three of the top-10 regular season scorers. Buffalo was the only other team to have more than one in the top-10, as they had the fourth and seventh scorers. Stitt, Creagar and Shields all ranked in the top-five assist leaders in 3A.
As mentioned, Ring was not between the pipes for every game, allowing for other Blazers to accrue varsity saves. On top of ranking second in goals and third in assists, Stitt ranked 12th in 3A in saves, with 22. William Fluckiger spent some time as keeper, saving 14 shots and Lathan Canaday added another nine saves to the team’s total.
The Blazers ended the season with the best record (16-4) in the state, regardless of class. They started the season 6-0, before losing two straight games in Worland while adjusting the lineup. Torrington’s next loss came in their second to last game of the regular season, falling to Lander 2-1. Cody handed Torrington its fourth loss of the season in the championship game, 1-0.
“I thought that there were a lot of different aspects that made this season such a success. Our coaching staff got a lot of great support and help from our players, their parents, our fans, GoWyo and our new AD Mr. Plendl,” Arnusch said. “Most importantly, I felt that our kids had fun and enjoyed themselves. I thought that some of them fell back in love with the sport and remembered why they started playing it so long ago.”
Despite losing five senior starters to graduation, the Blazers have a solid roster of players with state-level experience uner their belts, heading into next season. Thirty-seven goals, 26 assists and 45 saves came from non-seniors this past year. Torrington could make another run to the title game in 2018.