The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Locals lace ‘em up for Steve Gardner
Soccer players and friends of Steve Gardner came out of the woodwork on Sunday, March 13 to play in the Stephen Gardner Kick in the Arsenal Soccer Classic indoor soccer tournament.
Stephen Gardner was diagnosed with cholangiocarcinoma in January and started chemotherapy treatment to battle the rare form of cancer this week. Gardner, a Crested Butte resident, husband and father of two, plays soccer with the Crested Butte adult team in tournaments and coached the U-14 soccer team last fall, so a soccer tournament fundraiser only made sense.
The idea was the brainchild of Jack Beyer. Beyer called Mike Martin and asked him to help out and when all was said and done the tournament raised $4,700 to help Steve with medical costs.
Twelve teams from up and down the valley showed up Sunday for a shot at the tournament title and it was a who’s who of current local soccer talent and former soccer stardom.
Prior to the start of the tournament, odds makers had a team led by Rodrigo Gonzaga as one of the favorites. Gonzaga had a mix of Ireland and Brazil on his squad, pulling in veteran strongman Brian Fenerty and Junior Silva onto the team as well as two other talented players.
One team roster included Jim, John and Karen Barney, Eric Naughton, Jeff Deutsch and Heather Duryea—all of whom are stars from Crested Butte’s soccer past.
The tournament also brought Todd Wasinger and Josh Schumacher out of their respective 20-year retirements and Jakob Hassig all the way from South Carolina to play with a lift-op team of Jack Beyer, CJ Meyer, Andrew “Butters” Butterfield and Tyler Cappellucci; And that’s just the tip of the iceberg of the talent displayed in the gym on Sunday.
The spoiler team of the day was a plucky young crew of eighth and ninth graders Pharwit Durgan, Anna Fenerty, Kaleb Schultz, Sam Reaman and JJ O’Neal. The team chopped down two adult squads in the process of advancing out of group play to the playoff rounds.
The Maxwell’s squad of Evan Keeling, Todd Dohlman, Travis Hunter and Daniel Larsen looked formidable from the start but after advancing out of group play, they met their fate in the single-elimination round, losing to the Gardner Snakes.
The Snakes, comprised of Drew Canale, Andy Sovick, Jason Lakey, Robin Gresham and Chris “Topher” DeFelice, had a slow start to the day losing their first game 2-1 but rallied through to the semifinals to face a Titans high school team of Ben Reaman, Luis Aguirre, Jesse Reeves, Lindsay Kopf and Henry Linehan, aka the Wolverines.
At that point, youth edged out experience. While Canale and crew managed to dominate possession with spacing and pinpoint passing, the speed and tenacity of the Wolverines proved overwhelming as they advanced with a 3-2 win.
Meanwhile, two Gunnison teams squared off in the other semifinal showdown. One team was led by Juan Marmolyo. Marmolyo brought in his teammates from a Gunnison crew that included Marcos Chacon, Armando Chavez, Jorge Castro and Israel Chavez, playing a unique chip and attack style of play that proved devastating most of the day.
But they met their match in a crew of soccer players consisting of Western State College-style soccer mixed in with some good ol’ East Texas flair.
Cole Brittain scrambled together the team, bringing in Matt Smith and Zach and Keith Schlichting last minute, making it through the group stage without a sub. Jeff Gaylord eventually joined in for the playoff rounds and they battled to an overtime win over their Gunnison rivals to advance to the finals against the Wolverines.
Ultimately, the Western State/Texas-style of play emerged as the winning combination, handing the high school Wolverines a loss in the finals and taking the Stephen Gardner Kick in the Arsenal Soccer Classic title.
