By Brian Jennings

Colorado secured their second win in a row at home and remained unbeaten in their last four matches of 2018 Saturday afternoon. Midfielder Jack Price scored a cracker from distance in the second minute, then held down Toronto for the second straight home shutout.

Rather than dwell on recent draws, in which the Rapids had a lead late in the match only to see points dropped on equalizers from their opponents, Head Coach Anthony Hudson likes the way his team moved forward in focusing on the next step and learning from past miscues. “Tomorrow the mindset from us-the result is done, we’re a team that needs to keep improving.”

When asked where this comes from, Hudson said, “I think it’s just belief, I think it’s familiarity, I think it’s cohesion, I think it’s players now understanding and recognizing we’ve had a couple of lessons against different types of teams and we’re progressing.”

“That’s the beauty of our team and our coaching staff that after every game they analyze every situation. They’re very tactical and very smart. We work on those things. Every week we’ve been improving and today it shows,” Midfielder Enzo Martinez told The Voice of C38 postmatch. “We struggle with closing games out and that was a big focus this week, especially when we go up 1-0 and the game is getting tight. The mentality from everyone is we have to close this game out, we have to do whatever it takes,” explains Martinez on the fact that the players know they can’t let up even for a minute.

That line of thinking, something Colorado’s staff impressed on the players this past week, was controlling from midfield and building forward from there, according to Martinez. “That was our big focus before the game started-coach said ‘I want us to play forward, I want midfield to get on the ball, I want to be able to find the forwards’. That’s something I guess he saw that we weren’t doing as much.”

Specifically, Enzo said, finishing matches comes down to a few basics that the Rapids were able to carry out against Toronto. “First of all, you have to start with the concentration-you have to concentrate the whole game. You can’t let one play go by.”

“Secondly, it comes to individually doing your job. They make it very clear what each player has to do and what our job is. Third, as a team, staying together and being on the same page and the same mentality to help get the result at the end. If you see it that’s one of the main things we do is talk to each other, help each other out, and make it easy.”