With just over a week left in the regular season, girls’ soccer teams are looking to hit their stride heading into the postseason.

But not all playoff prep is created equal.

Rampart, which enters the final week undefeated, is the area’s top local team, but the Pikes Peak region has others battling for second locally.

Thursday two of the top 4A teams in the area, Sand Creek and Air Academy, squared off in a 5A/4A PPAC battle with the Kadets taking a 4-1 win and gaining an edge in the league pennant race.

According to the latest RPI standings, Air Academy is ranked fifth in 4A, followed by Palmer Ridge in ninth and Sand Creek at No. 11. Two weeks ago Palmer Ridge handed the Scorpions their first loss of the season.

The Kadets started the season 2-3 thanks in part to a difficult schedule and an incomplete squad with eight members competing late into the girls’ basketball season. But now, Air Academy is battling through a grueling final two weeks of the season, and finding success in preparation for playoffs.

“It wasn’t like we were losing to bad teams early in the year, but right now we are humming pretty well,” Air Academy coach Espen Hosoien said. “We’ve been working like a fine-tuned machine the last three or four weeks and we stepped it up and we’re playing how we want. There’s some high quality stuff we are doing for a high school girls’ soccer team.”

On the other side of the field, Sand Creek stormed through the first half of the season on a 10-0 run, dominating its opponents by an average of seven goals per game. But in the final two weeks, the Scorpions have gone 2-2 and played in some of the team’s closest contests of the year.

Hosoien applauded his team’s resiliency playing well through a tough stretch, while Sand Creek’s Jeremy Tafoya said his team will learn more from its final two weeks of regular season play than it did through its 10-0 stretch.

“Overall I’m excited. I feel like we had a few too many easy games to start the season and we’re excited to get into some scraps now,” Tafoya said. “That’s the biggest thing. And these girls have a lot of character and they know we’re either going to move forward and learn from it, or we’re going to go home early.”

The biggest lesson learned from Thursday’s clash was how to face the aggressive style that Air Academy brought to the field.

Air Academy used that physicality to take a 2-0 lead after the first half thanks to goals by Katie Tansill and Capri Dewing.

After the break the Scorpions adjusted to gain some momentum, which paid off on a rebound shot by Zoe Shank to cut the deficit to one with 24 minutes to play. But the Kadets quickly regained the edge with goals by Annie Louthan and Bailey Barnes to put the game on ice.

“That first half was the deciding factor, for sure, and it was kind of a gut punch,” Tafoya said. “But we need a test. If we had had a tougher schedule it would have benefited us more, but right now this is a character check, and a gut check so let’s see what happens.”

Liza Louthan maneuvers around Sand Creek’s Jayden LeDoux on Thursday, April 25 at Air Academy Stadium in Colorado Springs. (photo by Liz Copan)

Liz Copan

Liza Louthan maneuvers around Sand Creek’s Jayden LeDoux on Thursday, April 25 at Air Academy Stadium in Colorado Springs. (photo by Liz Copan)

Liz Copan