Soccer club opens season on the road

Diligence pays off with a couple wins

It hasn’t been the easiest season for the inaugural year of the local club soccer program, the Paradise Futbol Club. Snows confined most teams to workouts in the gym, with a handful of practices on the fields of Gunnison. Still, the boys’ and girls’ teams, ranging in ages from U-10 to U-14, remained focused.

The payoff for their work came in the past two weekends as the club sent teams throughout southwest Colorado and New Mexico for games.
The girls’ U-14 team headed to Telluride on Saturday, April 26 for their first two games ever. The girls had a tough time against established programs from Telluride and Durango, but managed to find the net twice over the course of their two losses.
They returned to action the following weekend, competing in the tri-city tournament in Cortez on Saturday and Sunday, May 3-4.
The girls came away from their first tournament experience with a win, two losses and a tie, with Elisabeth Desmarais and Abby Green scoring a couple of goals over the weekend.
The boys’ and girls’ U-12 team spent Saturday, April 26 in Durango and registered one tie and three losses against club programs that are well into their season with months of practices and games on grass.
The U-10 boys’ and U-14 boys’ teams headed to Montrose on Saturday, April 26 for two games each. Both teams saw success over the course of the day with the U-14 boys tying their first game 1-1 and winning the second game 3-2.
The U-10 boys won their first game 2-1 and tied their second match 4-4.
The club teams look forward to workouts on grass in the near future with plenty of games and a handful of tournaments coming up in the next several weeks.