After an up and down season, Grand Junction High School’s boys varsity soccer team is headed to the Class 4A state playoffs kicking off Thursday, Oct. 26.
“About halfway through the season our coach sat us down and we talked about why we thought that we were not being as successful as we wanted to…We still struggled a little bit after that but I think everyone had a shift in their mentality,” said GJHS junior Edison Dean.
“I think we owe a lot to our coach, [Jonathan] Pando, in terms of that. He was the one that sat us down and had us talk about it. He ended up working things out with everybody,” GJHS junior Adam Pramenko said.
The Tigers enter this year’s playoffs ranked 20th out of 32 teams with a record of 7 wins, 4 losses and 4 ties (7-4-4). GJ will play at the 13th-seeded Windsor Wizards – located north of Denver near Fort Collins – at 6 p.m. Thursday. Windsor has a record of 9-5-1.
“I think that we can go really far, I think we’re a really good team and we can play really well together,” Pramenko said. “It just comes down to if we play as a team, if we play how we have the past two games. We can make it to the round of 16, if not the round of 8, or even take a state championship.”
GJHS lost in a disappointing shootout on their home turf to Steamboat Springs in the first round of the playoffs last year.
