It’s been a long season for the Rock Canyon boys soccer team.

The kind of long season the Jaguars have been dreaming about.

The program, which started in 2005, will enter Wednesday’s state championship game against Niwot with an unbeaten 16-0-3 record.

It sure beats the long season the Jaguars experienced two years ago, when they finished a dismal 1-14.

“To come from that to go to the state finals two years later is awesome, unbelievable,” Rock Canyon striker Alex Tarnoczi said.

Rock Canyon’s rise has been dramatic. This season the Jaguars won the Class 5A Continental League, outscoring opponents 85-11. But to reach the state final, the Jaguars had to learn to work together as a team. At the beginning of the season, Rock Canyon was essentially the Alex Tarnoczi show. Tarnoczi, who will play for the University of Denver next season, leads 4A in scoring with 33 goals and 11 assists, but the Jaguars were relying too much on their talented striker to shoulder the offense.

“We were totally reliant on him,” senior Nick Croley said. “It was all about him. Now he is about the team, and the team is about him. It’s amazing right now. He is our main source of offense, but now everything is starting to come together.”

Croley has delivered several key goals late in the season and is second on the team with 11 goals. Scott Graybeal, Tiago Lima and Scott Branson each have six goals this season.

“If a team shuts me down, they can’t shut our team down,” Tarnoczi said.

That’s the challenge Niwot will face at Englewood Stadium. But the Cougars (16-2-1) have shown an ability to rise to the challenge this season. Seeded sixth, they accomplished the difficult task of traveling to No. 3 seed Broomfield and beating the Eagles 2-1 in the quarterfinals.

On Saturday Niwot shut down 22-goal scorer Reid Hukari to notch a 3-1 victory against Wheat Ridge in the semifinals. The Cougars know how to play defense, as evidenced by their 13 shutouts this season, but they face another huge challenge in the championship with Tarnoczi.

“Alex is very quick and very good with the ball,” Niwot coach Steve Lepper said. “We’re going to game-plan for him, like we did with Hukari, but we aren’t just going to stick two people on him and call it good.”

While defense was the Cougars' calling card this season, Rock Canyon will need to keep track of Cougars midfielder Santiago Velez. A sophomore, the midfielder scored three goals against Wheat Ridge and leads the Cougars with 15 goals this season.

“He’s very mature as a sophomore and he’s one of the biggest winners I’ve ever met,” Lepper said. “Even in practice, he wants to win everything.”

Curtis Stecyk has scored eight goals this season for Niwot, which, like Rock Canyon, has never won a state title in boys soccer.