Travel in the rocky mountains is a tricky thing.
And this year, in both men’s and women’s soccer, it’s been a bit trickier than usual in the Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference.
Instead of the typical weekend of back-to-back home games Friday and Sunday, there have been weekends that have involved one home game and one road game for the Skyhawks this season, and Sunday will mark only the second time this season that both the men’s and women’s teams have played at home on the same day.
The quick switches don’t always allow for an extra training session between games, such as this weekend’s schedule for the FLC women, which saw the Skyhawks play a 7 p.m. game Friday against Colorado Mines in Golden before Sunday’s 1 p.m. game against CSU-Pueblo.
“It is interesting,” FLC women’s head coach Damian Clarke said after Friday’s 1-0 loss to the nationally ranked Orediggers. “I don’t know if the team quite has the hang of it yet. I think we’ll find out more on Sunday the extent of how they’ll react.”
The women’s team by season’s end will have had four such home-away weekends, and the men’s team will have had three.
FLC men’s head coach Oige Kennedy said wins on the away leg to start the weekend, such as FLC’s 4-0 triumph over CSU-Pueblo on Friday, make the travel more bearable.
“It certainly helps when we win,” he said. “The atmosphere is a lot better traveling back.”
Clarke added of the quirky schedule, “There’s no doubt that there’s a bit of an advantage for teams on the Front Range.”
heraldsports@durangoherald.com
