Runner-up finish in 2012 has Smoky Hill looking for more this season in Class 5A.
Walter Prince (16) will take a leadership role with Smoky Hill this season with an eye on guiding the Buffaloes back to the Class 5A state title game.
File photo by Tim Visser
It's fortunate that
Walter Prince of
Smoky Hill (Aurora) is such a formidable presence, because he has some mighty big shoes to fill on the soccer pitch.
Prince, a physical 6-foot-3 junior, will be making the move from midfield to striker this season for the Buffaloes, plugging a hole left by the graduation of his good friend Jeff Gillis, an All-Colorado selection who led all of Class 5A with 21 goals last year.
While that task should be daunting, it hasn't given Prince any pause at all. After all, Prince is part of a Smoky Hill program that went from picking up two wins in 2010 to one that made it all the way to the state title game last year. The Buffaloes enter the new season ranked No. 1.
"I'm not concerned about it at all," said Prince, who notched five goals and eight assists in 2012. "I'm willing to step up and do whatever I have to for the team. We're deep at every position, and I have a lot of confidence in my teammates. They'll make me look good and, hopefully, I'll make them look good."
It's been a pretty remarkable turnaround for the Buffs, a proud program that went to four consecutive state title games between 2004-07, winning it all the last two years, to a squad that didn't even qualify for the playoffs between 2009-11.
A lot of that turnaround can be credited to the hiring of Kersten Mullan as coach following the 2010 season. A former Colorado prep star who helped Highlands Ranch win a girls title in 1994, Mullan led Smoky Hill to a five-win season her first year before the Buffs made their remarkable run to the title game last season.
"It's pretty awesome going into my third season with the team and taking over a program that was 2-12-1 to now being ranked No. 1," said Mullan, who is the wife of Colorado Rapids forward Brian Mullan. "It's says a lot about how committed the players are, and the school and surrounding community is, and what the program is going to be about from this point forward."
Kersten Mullan admitted there was quite a bit of work to do to change the culture surrounding the Buffs, who had become accustomed to losing.
"We had a super-talented senior class (that first year), but we didn't know how to win. We had to break some old habits and right the ship," Mullan said. "Being a good soccer program is in the blood at Smoky Hill. It got lost for a while but now it seems to be back."
Prince makes no bones about how much credit Mullan should get for getting Smoky Hill back to the top of the upper echelon of Colorado soccer.
"All of it. She's the whole reason we are where we are," Prince said. "She showed us that we are capable of so much more than we thought we were."
And now the Buffs have the added motivation of the memory of last season's state championship game, a contest that was postponed for two days because of weather and saw upstart Boulder capture its first crown with a 3-1 victory.
"We think about it every day in practice. It's something we'll never get over," Prince said. "That's the best motivation there is."
In addition to Prince, Smoky Hill returns
Kevin Del Mazo (nine goals, 10 assists) and
Tyler Glenn in the midfield, while
Kevin Edgar and
Colton Ladyga will anchor the defense.
Andrew Franceschi, who played defense last season, takes over in goal for the departed Grayson Heath, who had 10 shutouts last year.
And they bring back the confidence of a squad that knows it has the talent to compete for a state title, an attribute that had been missing on the Smoky Hill campus for a few years.
"When the guys heard they were ranked No. 1, it didn't even phase them," Mullan said. "They had the attitude that it doesn't mean anything if they don't raise the championship trophy."
