The Eagle Valley boys soccer team led 2-0 with 15 minutes to go in the first round of the 2025 state tournament on Thursday. After two overtimes and a shootout, however, the Devils’ season was over.

“That was a brutal loss,” Battle Mountain coach Dave Cope commented to me after watching George Washington’s comeback on his up-valley rivals. “Just the fact they scored in overtime and it gets called back. Those are just hard things.”

Cope knows. Last year, Battle Mountain was less than one second away from earning a third-straight trip to the state final when an unforced Husky handball call at the buzzer enabled Air Academy to tie things up and later prevail in overtime.

Why does losing sting?

What makes winning so great?

The longer I train and compete — and grow in my Christian faith — the more I’m convinced that transcendent truths embedded in sports point to greater spiritually realities. Sports is about sanctification. It makes sense then that the main point of the games — the outcome — provides a small picture of the ultimate battle taking place all around us.

Ephesians 6:12 states, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.”

In this section of scripture, Paul lays out the situation and also gives us a game plan. He says to “be strong in the Lord” and to “put on the whole armor of God.” In 1 Peter 5:8, we are told to “be sober-minded” and “watchful” since our enemy, the devil, “prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.” I don’t know about you, but the athletic connections feel obvious. After all, how often do high school coaches talk about “playing our game” (armor of God), being confident (strong in the Lord) but composed (sober-minded), especially as the currents of the contest rock us back and forth?

Unlike high school playoff games, however, the spiritual outcome discussed here isn’t in question. The Bible tells us that we are “more than conquerors” (Romans 8:37) and that no weapon fashioned against us shall succeed, for “this is the heritage of the servants of the Lord” (Isaiah 54:17). Jesus himself said that in Him, we may have peace. He added: “In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

All four gospel accounts record Christ dying on the cross for our sins. At the time, this definitely seemed like a loss for the good guys. I imagine the ‘hour of darkness’ pressed such a heavy weight of depressing defeat on the land, even the ’98 Vikings NFC title game tragedy and its effect on Minnesotans would seem minuscule by comparison. But when Jesus rose from the dead three days later, He flipped the script. Salvation — victory over sin and death — was won for all who believe.

In 2022, I went into the bowels of Switchbacks Weidner Stadium to find Cope for a quote after his No. 16-seeded Huskies lost to one of Colorado’s great soccer dynasties, Northfield, in the state championship game. Players, most of whom were going to come back the next year, cried as Cope consoled them in a final locker room debrief.

A year later, the Huskies flipped the script.

I was on the field in Colorado Springs then, too. Northfield players — having won 56 of their last 57 games and on the verge of a 3-peat state title — moped off while Battle Mountain’s celebrated. Cope, I remember, was at one point just soaking it all in, staring out at the field, basking in the moment.

Losing might sting, but it isn’t fatal. Death isn’t the end of the story either. One reason winning feels so good is that it points to something even greater, too: redemption.

“You don’t often win your last game of the season,” Cope remarked to me later.

That’s true.

But what matters is winning our last day in life. And with Christ, we can have 100% assurance we will.

—– Keep on Striving. Keep on Skiing ——