DENVER – It wasn’t a surprise to anyone that Legacy’s Kendall Rippley scored a goal in a soccer match.

After all, she scored 34 of them in 18 games for the Lightning during the recent spring soccer season.

Her most recent goal came during the June 13 Colorado High School Coaches Association’s all-state soccer game at Colorado Academy. The goal gave her team a lead at the time, and her squad eventually won the match 3-2.

“It was a fun one. It was nice on the counterattack, and it was a great one-touch by Lindsay (Lindsay Jeans from Evergreen High School) to me. I just checked my shoulder, found where the defender was and tried to get it on target,” she said.

There was no formal practice.

“We came together. It was new faces. We didn’t know those girls. We all met each other, and it was fun,” she said.

The all-state games pair up players from all over the state. The team composition for the all-star games do not take size of school into consideration.

“It’s a little bit different from high school,” Rippley said. “You have players from all different classifications. It’s cool to be able to come together as a state and play together, figure things out. It’s new experiences.”

Rippley said one thing she took from her experience at all-state was to not take anything for granted.

"The opportunities I’ve been given this past year, especially, have been mind-blowing,” Rippley said. “I’ve seen how hard work can get you places. It’s awesome to be part of it.”

Rippley, who will be a senior next year, committed to the Air Force Academy, and she said she couldn’t pinpoint one specific reason for her interest in the academy.

“Being able to serve my country has always been something I’ve been fond about,” she said. “Being able to serve my country, do things I would have never have the opportunity to do without being there drove me to go. The morals there are what I have.”

She has two areas of interest at the academy. One is to be a fighter pilot. The other is to go into the medical field.

Even though it was an all-star game, Rippley said she could take some things and apply them to her play.

“Their attitude, their play,” she said. “You can get an idea of how to treat your teammates better, how to communicate better with your teammates or seeing people’s runs. You can always get better, no matter how high a level you play at.

“It was fun. It was fun to be able to play with the types of players we were able to play with,” Rippley concluded. “Seeing players I’ve seen in club and in high school? It was fun to play with them. Some of them are rivals. So it was fun to connect with them. It was an experience I won’t forget."