Niwot boys soccer wins first game of the season

The Cougars boys soccer team started off its season strong, with a new head coach and a fairly new team of varsity players.

Head Coach Stephen Dimit was most recently coaching at Vista Ridge High School in Colorado Springs for the past five years, before coming to Niwot this fall. Dimit, who also taught at his former high school, is now teaching English at Niwot High School as well.

“So far everything’s worked out really great,” Dimit said of his new position. “It’s been a smooth transition for me and the guys have worked really hard. It’s been a good start to the season.”

The Cougars started off their season strong by winning 4-3 against Skyview on Thursday, August 25, in what Dimit called a “nail biter” game. With returning starters Nicholas Grant (jr.) and Brian Oates (sr.), Dimit hopes to see more of how his team played in its first game in future games.

“The first goal we scored on Thursday we scored in the first 30 seconds of the game,” Dimit said. “It was a beautiful goal and I kind of felt like that was a preview of what we’re going to look like a lot more often.”

With two goals made by Andres Montealegre (jr.), one by Alex Arnold (sr.) and Oates, Niwot showed it has the potential to be the strong team it’s been historically known as. Mario Munoz (so.) and Jesus Rodriguez (sr.) shared the task of goaltending, with Munoz making 11 saves and only allowing one goal, and Rodriguez making one save and allowing two goals to be made.

Dimit was impressed with how quickly the team took to him as a new coach, something he wasn’t expecting but is thankful for.

“They’ve been working so hard this summer,” he said of the team. “As a new coach coming in, you don’t always expect that. You expect it to kind of be a rocky transition and you have to get guys to buy in. But from week one they have been excellent.

“They’ve really done a great job transitioning from a coach they had for a long time into a new system,” Dimit added.

With only a few returning players on the varsity team, it’s made it slightly easier for Dimit to introduce his own coaching style and technique. Even with a brand new team, the players have been working together well and are on their way to discovering their team’s identity.

“Getting a little more comfortable together and finding this team’s identity,” Dimit said, describing what the team’s beenworking on. “I kind of challenge them to move on a little bit and to be willing to try new things. So far they’ve done a great job.”

For the upcoming weeks Dimit is going to work on defense and possession with the team, with the hopes of not allowing as many goals as they did in the first game.

“We’re going to work on tightening up our defense a little bit,” he explained. “Three goals in the first game wasn’t really what we were aiming for, we don’t want to allow those. We’re also going to be working on building a better possession game. So far so good, they’ve accepted that challenge.”

Assistant Coaches Brett Butrick and Jeremy Drake have also returned to the team this year, helping Dimit assimilate to his new role.

“They’ve been with the team for years and both of them wanted to stay on with the head coaching change,” Dimit said of the assistant coaches. “They’ve prepared these guys so well and they continue to. They’ve been fantastic.”

Overall Dimit couldn’t be more pleased with how the boys have been practicing and playing so far this season. He said they’re always up for new challenges, which makes his job as a coach that much easier.

“Every day they show up ready to work on something new and different,” Dimit said of the team. “We just had practice today and I threw some new concepts at them, and they immediately went after it. I really couldn’t ask for anything better from them.”

The boys soccer team’s next game is away on Thursday, September 1 against Holy Family High School, starting at 6 p.m.