Sports

Dustin Geist was a frontline forward.

Casey Stewart arguably was the team's MVP.

Geist won the Durango Demons' Golden Boot and Silver Boot awards for leading the boys soccer team in goals (9) and assists (8), respectively.

Stewart played fullback, stopper, sweeper, outside and center midfield.

Geist has one goal and three assists in five Colorado Class 5A postseason games.

Stewart has three goals, including one on a penalty kick, in those same five games.

Geist, however, for love of the team, set aside his 2007 Southwestern League Player of the Year honor, and his Golden and Silver Boots, to play the lower-profile position of outside midfielder during his 2008 season.

"My senior year, it was the right thing to do," he said. "I made that move to help the team."

Stewart, true to form, again played all over the pitch his senior season.

"As I went on, I got a lot better," Stewart said of his own progression. Come next fall, Stewart might be able to add another jack to his deck of trading cards - striker.

Together, the pair of Demons could become the Cougars' 2 in assistant coach's Andy McDermid's familiar 4-4-2 offense at Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville. Geist and Stewart signed National Letters of Intent to play Division I college soccer at SIUE.

Cougars head coach Kevin Kalish, nor coach McDermid, could comment on the signings because they had not yet received the Demons' paperwork.

"(McDermid) told us about his new coaching job, and he was hoping we could come out for a visit. He wanted us to go there," Stewart said.

"He liked our style; it's his kind of play - Arsenal style."

Four years ago, McDermid was tabbed by then Fort Lewis College men's soccer coach Jeremy Gunn to help tweak his successful, but not championship-caliber, 4-4-2 offense.

McDermid, a longtime youth coach with the Arsenal Football Club in London, and Gunn, a fellow Britton, led FLC to the 2005 Division II championship.

Three years ago, McDermid was tabbed by Durango High School boys soccer coach Scott Emrich to help tweak his successful but not championship-caliber 4-4-2 offense.

McDermid, who spearheaded Emrich's offseason summer camp, guided DHS beyond the second round of the state tournament in 2007 to a program-best semifinal appearance.

"By far, he is the most unbelievable coach I have ever seen," said Geist, who had his breakout campaign that season as a junior.

"They haven't even seen us play. They're just going off Andy's word. We're in the position we're in pretty much thanks to Andy."

"That's how they got recruited," said Emrich, who said Kalish and his staff, save for McDermid, had only seen but a few video clips of the players before signing the recruits, more than 18 hours and 1,100 miles away from the school.

"Their coach said he hasn't seen them play, so to go into that situation (through McDermid) is quite an honor. This is a great opportunity for them to be a part of a program for four years and to make that jump to DI; it's a great opportunity for both of them.

"It says a lot about both of them," Emrich said. "It's going to be fun to watch to see what they can do."

SIU-Edwardsville, a former Division II power, will enter its second season as a DI member next fall with Geist and Stewart in tow, possibly playing on a same line at striker.

"Andy said he liked the two of us up top," Stewart said.

Geist, despite never sharing the frontline with Stewart in four years at DHS, said: "I think it would be good. I can see Casey playing up top."

Nothing would surprise Emrich, who, after all, shuffled the two aces in his deck to fit whichever poker game he happened to be playing that day.

"They knew what Dustin and Casey could do," he said. "Andy just said, 'I've got to have these guys.'"

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