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Bulldog senior successful in soccer

Elwood Shelton

Editor’s note: This is an installment in a series highlighting the accomplishments of those Moffat County High School athletes named All-Conference and All-Conference honorable mention during the 2000-2001 athletic seasons.

With rain beginning to fall, being late to soccer practice and having no ride, then sophomore Isidro Quezada, went to his basement and found a bike with two flat tires. It didn’t matter to him. He still made the wet ride across town, and the train tracks, to practice.

“It was really funny at the time, to see Isidro pull a stunt like that, but it just goes to show you how much the kid loves soccer,” Coach Eric Johnson said.



Quezada, now a senior, has been a four-year starter for Moffat County as a midfielder, and has been a team leader since he started the sport.

At the midfielder position he is in possesion of the ball most of the time, which employs one of his greatest strengths, ball control, according to Johnson.



“The kid has some of the best ball control I’ve seen on any level, college, high school, and some pro,” Johnson said.

Having participated in soccer in one form or another and having a coach for a father, Quezada has created a knowledgeable background in the sport which is probably his greatest advantage on the field. Quezada’s father is a men’s league coach.

Johnson said that Quezada, more then anyone else he’s coached, has had the ability to read plays as they develop on the field, and is able to affect the outcome of those plays by his anticipation.

Over the years, Quezada feels he has grown as a player and recognized the areas he needs to improve. As a senior, he worked to become a more complete player and looked for more team success than individual success.

“One of the biggest realizations I had was that I had to work more as a team member if we were going to be successful. Before, I had a real tendency to try and do everything by myself,” he said.

Quezada’s play on the field the past fall earned him All-Conference honors in the Western Slope Conference (WSC), and has made him nationally known. He was offered a chance for an Olympic tryout in Rhode Island this spring. A certain amount of players are picked from each state to try out, but he chose not to go this year.

Instead, he plans to choose a college to play for after he graduates this spring.

“I’ve looked at the University of Southern Colorado, and a school in Glenwood Springs, among others, but I’m still not sure where it is I want to play,” Quezada said. “I’m not sure what I’d like to play in college, because I enjoy playing forward, but at midfield you end up with that ball more I’ll probably end up staying with midfield.”

It will not be the Olympic offers and college recruiting that Quezada will remember the most from his senior year. Instead, he will remember the ‘Dogs’ second game against Steamboat Springs, where he scored his first goal against the Sailors in his eighth career match-up against the team.

“It was a great feeling to get that score, they’re the team to beat in the conference and they’d held me off net my whole career,” he said. “It is just a good feeling to know that I’ll leave high school with at least one score against them.”


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