RAWLINS – After splitting matches with Lander and Rawlins last week, the Torrington Trailblazers found themselves in a first-place tie in the conference with the Tigers.
Lander and Torrington both sat at 3-1, with each team losing to the other once this spring. Neither school hosted or visited an opponent in common during the regular season – the first qualification to break a tie. In the next tiebreaker, both the Blazers and Tigers surrendered two total goals against quadrant opponents, which brought up the final decider.
A toss of the coin later, Lander sat in the first seed for the state tournament and the Blazers were on their way to another match in the qualifying round.
Lander 2, Torrington 1
The first half between the Blazers and Tigers on Thursday saw a lot of scoring, with Lander taking the lead at intermission, 2-1. A.J. Shields had Torrington’s goal in the first half. Torrington was not able to mount a comeback in the second half, falling by the same score.
“Against Lander I thought we did a decent job of containing their offense and limiting their shots on goal, we just had a hard time putting an of our nine sots on goal into the back of the net,” coach Jeshua Arnusch said. “We put too many shots directly to the goalie at the front post instead of going low and away. That is something we will have to work on this next week.”
In the loss, Tyler Ring racked up eight saves.
Torrington 3, Rawlins 0
The Blazers did not struggle to put the ball in the back of the net against the Outlaws on Saturday, with each of the three goals coming from a different Blazer.
Link Jirasart, Nathan Stitt and Nate Gutierrez each had a goal on the night. Stitt paced the Blazers in assists, with two, while Jirasart added a third.
“Overall, I was very impressed with how our team came out firing to get the lead,” Arnusch said. “It was a couple of quick goals and that then allowed us to slow down the tempo of the game and play over the top balls to Braden Claussen and Nate Gutierrez. It was definitely a team effort tonight.”
The Blazers could not allow Rawlins to score a goal to maintain their tie in the standings with Lander. Ring recorded the clean sheet with 12 saves on the afternoon.
The coin flip loss sends Torrington to the state qualifier in Worland, where they play Pinedale at 3 p.m. Friday. The winner between Torrington and Pinedale faces Buffalo at the state tournament.
“If we lose the coin flip, then we have to play Pinedale on Friday in Worland or we wait until state and draw the winner of Powell and Douglas,” Arnusch said before the flip. “Either way, it would be nice to have an extra seven days off to recover from this three-game week, or it would be nice to play again to keep the rust off. Either way, our goal is to win a state championship.”
