As the Moffat County soccer field slowly regains its greenery after months of being smothered in snow, so too will the spirit of the athletes who use it blossom in the coming months. At least, that’s what the new head coach of the Bulldog girls team hopes to see.

MoCo girls soccer is again under new leadership, this time being overseen by one of its former players, Trinitie Beckner, who graduated from MCHS in 2019.

Beckner, who replaces Chelsea Suazo, was part of the Bulldog roster when Moffat County last had a win in March 2019.

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The program went through tough times with a revolving door of coaches during Beckner’s time on the team, but her love of the game kept her going. Beckner competed for Otero College in La Junta before returning to Craig in 2020 just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hired in February, Beckner said she took the job largely because she could empathize with the current players after going through several seasons where there was an increasing uncertainty each spring that a team would be able to take the field.

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“I know what it feels like to be 16 and scared that you’re not gonna have a program,” she said. “I know what it feels like to want to play, but nobody on your team is fighting for you to play.”

She noted that while coaches gave their best effort, it was often drama on the field that made things harder to keep a sense of team spirit.

“I was the girl who wanted it so bad and had other girls who didn’t,” Beckner said.

She added that she admired Bulldog boys coach Diego Quezada — also an MCHS alumnus — for getting the fall program back in gear the past few years and felt she could do the same.

“It wasn’t fair to think that the girls program wasn’t getting the same treatment when they can be just as good or better,” she said. “Since I’m here and kind of a stay-at-home mom, I was glad to be able to come and help. I was nervous they wouldn’t let me just because of my age.”

Beckner also has an assistant coach in place with Ashley Chaffin, who relocated to Craig from Grand Junction last year.

Chaffin said she spent much of her youth competing in Grand Junction soccer programs and wants to offer her expertise in the sport to teens.

“I wanted to do a higher level of coaching. I have a 7-year-old daughter, so I’ve played a lot of ‘Sharks and Minnows,’ but it’s nice to do something a little bit more structured,” she said.

Chaffin said the Craig weather is a little more of a factor than she expected in spring soccer, with the MCHS field still recovering from winter.

“We never really had that problem,” she said. “We’d have games that were snowy or rainy, but never like that.”

She added that a different kind of climate regarding girls soccer in Moffat County also surprised her.

“I was thinking, ‘Where’s the indoor league? There’s no camp, there’s no pickup games?'” Chaffin said.

Beckner agreed that it has been trickier to retain athletes at the high school level, a problem she faced in her playing days. And she knows all too well that other schools on the Western Slope will have a leg up this spring.

“Every other program is in club mode all year, and they don’t have that here,” she said.

To that effect, Beckner is emphasizing a “starter program” approach to coaching. While she’s not hurting for numbers with more than 20 girls on the team, the spectrum of skills is fairly vast between rookies and returning players from last season.

“We have a lot of new girls but also a lot of girls who didn’t come back,” she said.

She is less concerned with immediate victories than she is forming a cohesive group unit.

“Trying to make them into a competitive level isn’t really going to work, because a lot of these girls have really never touched a ball in their life and some have played pretty much their whole lives,” Beckner said. “We’re trying to meet in the middle and address that disconnect and also teaching them patience. When you’re 16 and you want to make somebody proud, you drag yourself down. We want them to have the patience and be able to trust themselves and think, ‘OK, I know what I’m doing.’ Unless they have their mental in the right spot, they’re not going to succeed, and after having so many discouragements, rebuilding them is the key.”

After a few weeks of indoor practice sessions that led into spring break, Beckner and her players were able to work on the fundamentals on grass Monday afternoon, which itself was an adjustment.

“After today, it will make a difference getting used to their touches and seeing how they’re comfortable with it,” Beckner said. “It is a huge difference. A ball on grass bounces more. It’s not as straight of a pass. It moves a lot slower. When we go play on turf fields, they’ll have a better experience with that, but with our field, the uneven ground is something that they’re still not used to.”

The Dogs initially had two home games scheduled for this week, one of which will be rescheduled and the other moved to Vail on Thursday. Next week will be a game against Grand Valley, which will hopefully coincide with the MCHS field being fully usable.

With a childhood spent in recreational soccer, freshman Maddie Larsen is picking up the game again.

“I’m just excited to see our first game and see how it’s gonna come together for us all,” she said.

Astrid Silva is one of four seniors on the team this season, though it’s her first year competing after previously being a manager.

“I just saw them play and thought I’d give it a chance in my last year here. It looks like it’s easy, but it’s really not,” she said. “It’s good to see how they all work together and how we’re actually like a team.”

Sophomore Sofia Luna scored one of the two goals Bulldog girls recorded last season and hopes to create more opportunities as a striker this spring. She noted that the current group is staying more verbal.

“With this group, we actually talk a lot more and communicate. We’re making sure we all get along,” she said.

Luna and Silva agreed that Beckner has already been a positive change for the team.

“She’s strict but encouraging,” Silva said. “She’s also trying to teach us everything whether we already knew it or not.”