Although 68 miles and an hour-plus drive separates Rifle and Aspen, the Bears traveling fandom didn’t keep them from loosening the intensity of a challenging midweek matchup. 

The Rifle Bears varsity soccer team and their sizable traveling crowd improved to 5-1 on the season Tuesday night after beating the Aspen Skiers by a score of 2-0.

“Since my first year, the Rifle crowd has always shown up,” Bears head coach Jonathan Espinosa said. “It means everything. It doesn’t matter how far it is. Denver, Aspen, Cortez, they will be here.”

It didn’t take long for Rifle and its dominating offense to take hold of the game, but Aspen’s junior goalkeeper, Jaxon Hartley, and their ultra-defensive game plan kept the Bears off the board until late in the first half. 

Most of the game was spent in Aspen’s defending half, which stayed knotted primarily due to Hartley’s impressive play, but even the junior’s best efforts couldn’t have stopped the odd way Bears senior midfielder Eduardo Espino broke the tie. 

With just eight minutes remaining in the first half, Rifle continued their slow and methodical attack, slowly moving the entire team up as the distance from ball to goal dwindled. Incoming shots were deflected by the Skiers’ last line of defense or gobbled up by Hartley. The Bears brought out some trickery on their third corner kick in seemingly as many minutes.

Espino took the short pass in from the corner, then slowly made his way towards the net and awaited the scrum of players. A quick burst beat the closest defender but brought the 12th defender – the goal line – into play. Espino tiptoed the line as he carried the ball in close, saw no passes open, and tried to stuff the ball past Hartley from point blank. The ball hit the diving Hartley square in the stomach. He cradled it to the ground, thinking he had kept the Bears out of the back of the net once again, only to realize he was in the back of the net. 

The goal brought the quieting Rifle crowd back into the game as the seconds ticked off. The lead put a cap on the first half, and the Bears carried the momentum through the break and into the second. 

The Skiers’ halftime adjustments were even more defensive, relying heavily on a long pass or a breakaway to even the score, but that just allowed Rifle to waste time with less effort. The second half sped by as the away team kept booting the ball halfway down the field. The chippiness and desperation showed up too late for the Skiers, ultimately leading to the Bears’ second goal as the final minute ticked off the clock. 

With just 52 seconds left in the game, Rifle set up a freekick just inside their attacking zone. An awry through-ball bounced off an Aspen defender’s foot, redirecting the path from out of bounds to the feet of senior midfielder Alexander Villasenor, who just had Hartley to beat. 

The 2-0 score doesn’t reflect the Bears offense’s chokehold on Tuesday night’s matchup, but Rifle improves to 5-1 just the same.

“We need to finish,” Espinosa said. “But apart from that, I think we did great. We had chances, we kept creating, they have an excellent goalie and he made some outstanding saves, so we are not worried.”

 The Bears have rolled through the first six games of their season, hitting just one speed bump in a tough game against league opponent Roaring Fork.

The Bears will next face off against Interstate 70 rival Coal Ridge Titans on Thursday, a team that kept Rifle from making a state championship appearance last year following a 2-1 loss in the state semifinals.