Two scenarios played out in coach Rick Sundahl's mind.
The worst-possible scenario was for his Colorado Springs SportingClub to get in a fight with the Freedom Football Club from Vail inthe inaugural game of the Continental League - a men's amateursoccer league in Colorado. The best-case scenario was a win - and noscrums.
Neither happened.
Colorado Springs SC lost 4-0 Sunday at Mountain Lion Stadium.
'We got a lot of work to do, I know that much,' Colorado Springscaptain Mike Unrein said. 'This is our first time playing togetherand we found out what we need to work on and we just got to buildfrom there.'
Sundahl said he and league president Jonathan Williams have beenworking for the past six months planning the Continental Leaguelaunch. Its objective is to get its players exposure while teachingthe game at a high level.
'If we can them that exposure, there's always the chance thatsomeone catches lightning in a bottle and they get to be thatstory,' Sundahl said.
Unrein said he heard about the league two months ago. He attendedtryouts and made the team intending to improve. Unrein said being onthe ground floor of a new league is 'exciting.'
'I'm pretty sure everybody here is excited about it,' he said.
Freedom's Christian Larsen scored the league's first goal when hedrilled a low-liner from the right-wing past goalie Nick Morgan inthe 14th minute.
Freedom doubled its lead 4 minutes into the second half whenAndrew Carver - with the aid of a strong breeze - blasted a 45-yarder from the left side over Morgan's outstretched arms.
Larsen scored two more goals to make it 4-0 and recorded theleague's first hat-trick.
About the only thing that went wrong for FC Freedom was a 38-minute delay to the start of the game. Captain Matt Zaremba said theteam was stuck in traffic traveling Interstate 470.
'We don't have good competition up in the mountains, so we drovedown here 3 hours to play against a bunch of college kids,' Zarembasaid.
About a third of the Colorado Springs? roster is under the age of21.
