Sand Creek boys soccer duo lights up the scoreboard

There are goal-scorers, and then there are finishers.

The Sand Creek (Colorado Springs) boys soccer team has a pair of finishers this season, and they're lighting up the leader board.

Heading into Tuesday night's showdown with The Classical Academy (Colorado Springs), Scorpions' senior Justin Glivar had scored a state-leading 14 goals in only five games this season, four more than anyone else in the state.

Second on that list is Sand Creek teammate L'trel Sterling, who has already found the back of the net 10 times during the first two weeks of the current campaign.

"We're always going after it," Glivar said. "We do our best to score as much as we can."

It should come as no surprise that a Scorpion is either at the top or near the top of the leaderboard, as the team has eschewed traditional soccer strategy to employ a wide-open attack for several years. In Sand Creek coach Jeremy Tafoya's opinion, a one-goal lead is fine, but a two-goal lead is even better.

But what is different on this year's club is that in Glivar and Sterling, Tafoya has two players capable of putting up 20 or more goals this season.

"I think what sets them apart is their speed," said Tafoya, who is in his third year leading the club. "They're probably the fastest two soccer players in the city."

Because of that speed, Tafoya has modified his strategy some this season. Where before he wanted his club to control the ball to put constant pressure on their opponents, now he tells his players to boom the ball down the field and let Glivar and Sterling do their thing.

"Before it was always about possession for me. Possession, possession, possession," Tafoya said. "Now I tell the team to strike the long ball down the field and let the two boys finish."

And for their part, Glivar and Sterling have developed a chemistry that makes them hard to stop when they're on the attack.

"We've made a really good connection, and we look for each other on the field," Glivar said. "We don't care who scores – we're not selfish. We both have assists to each other, as well as to other players on the team."

"I love it," said Sterling. "We have a great coach that lets us go for it and it's been working pretty well so far."

The role of goal-scorer is something new for Sterling, at least on the high school level. Last year he played defense for Sand Creek, and only scored two goals during the entire campaign. But with leading scorer Donald Tafoya graduating, Sterling was given the chance to move to the attack.

"I played outside-mid for my club team, so I knew the mind-set I had to have," Sterling said. "I was ready for the move."

Glivar had already proven himself an effective scorer on the high school level, finishing tied as the second-leading scorer last year. And he proved he was up to the task of being the main weapon in the Scorpions first game this year, notching a school-record six goals in a 10-0 victory against Widefield on Aug. 29.

"The school record for points in a season is 29 goals and 28 assists, set by Danny Childs who now plays at (The University of) Vermont," Tafoya said. "I think Justin could shatter that record this year."

Tafoya admits that the wide-open strategy that Sand Creek employs does have its downfalls. While the Scorpions will put a lot of points on the board, their opponents will too.

"We're going to give up a lot of goals," Tafoya said. "But I'm an offensive-minded coach. We're not going to sit on leads. But I'd be willing to guarantee that we're not going to be shut out this season.

"We could put (Sterling and Gilvar) back on defense, and we probably wouldn't get scored on. But we wouldn't score, either. That's not who we are."

Through the first five games of the season, Sand Creek has scored 30 goals. But they have also given up 11 and had a 3-2-0 record. Tafoya admits the Scorpions have a ways to go to get back to where they were last season, when the team went 12-5-0 and advanced to the second round of the state tournament.

"I thought we should have won state last year," said Tafoya, whose team was eliminated by Cheyenne Mountain 1-0. "I thought three of the top five teams in the state all came from Colorado Springs. But we had to face each other in the tournament and knocked each other out."