Longtime friends and teammates to play on same Sedona Red Rock High School team for first time in 3 years

When 14-year-old Atlas Branch was about 4 or 5 years old, he received a soccer ball as a gift.

“My mom would always take me to Posse Grounds and just let me kick the ball around, so just that and seeing games on TV is basically how I started,” he said.

Nearly 10 years later, Branch does a lot of the same things: He plays soccer, spends time with his friends and goes to watch parties with his friends for the quadrennial FIFA World Cup.

“Got a couple [scheduled] for the USA games, too,” Branch’s friend and fellow soccer player Luke Metzger said two days before the first game kicked off on June 12. “It’s just good to get together with everybody, and it’s really fun.”

Mostly, Branch and his friends are keeping an eye on the U.S. and Mexico teams, both the No. 1 team in their respective groups. They like to watch FC Barcelona, too, when they’re watching regular season professional soccer.

“When you watch it on the TV, it makes you want to go out there and do it yourself,” said David Beltran, another one of Branch and Metzger’s friends.

Past

The trio has had a history of playing together in the American Youth Soccer Organization, the coed Sedona Red Rock Middle School team and club soccer.

Watching them play for the past several years, Atlas’ father David Branch said he thinks the next few years of Sedona soccer will be the best the school’s seen in a long time.

“The next few years have been seven years in the making,” he wrote. “The core group with Atlas coming up, have all played on tournament teams together since 2019, … and have been looking forward to this moment since then. I think it’s rare to have juniors, sophomores and freshmen that will have this kind of synergy they’re about to have together before the first day of practice.”

Their next season together, which is starting a bit later than past seasons because of the shift from fall soccer to winter soccer, will have its first game on Tuesday, Nov. 24, at home against the Glendale Prep Griffins.

While the three got into soccer around the same time, they all had different means. Beltran said his parents signed him up for AYSO when he was about 4 or 5. He’s stuck with it ever since.

Metzger is a youngest sibling, so he’s the last in his family to start playing, after watching his brother Ben, winner of the 2025 Golden Boot soccer award.

“I’ve just grown up watching him [Ben] play, and just inspired me to start playing, too,” Metzger said. “I’ve played … the AYSO levels. So, all the way back when you’re kicking the ball into the cones.”

Present

They all play in Phoenix for SC del Sol — the club on which Metzger’s older brother also played — at least once a week over the summer. Branch expects to play more this summer, because of the inspiration he gets from watching the World Cup.

“I don’t really have a favorite player in specific, but if I had to choose, Lamine Yamal,” a right winger and right midfielder for FC Barcelona and the Spain national team, Branch said. “He’s left-footed, like I am, so I love his play style.”

The three also like to kick the ball around in Sedona whenever they get the chance. In their time playing in the Verde Valley, they know a lot of fellow soccer players throughout the region.

“In the middle school season, I had a few players that I recognized on the Camp Verde team, and we’ve always been big rivals with them,” Branch said. “It was just a fun time to be able to play against them rather than with them.

“Sometimes we meet up and play some pickup soccer.”

Outside Soccer

All three like to stay active off the soccer field.

“If I weren’t to play soccer, I’d say golf would be my main sport,” Branch said.

“I want to try almost everysport,” Metzger said. “Try and get full experience.”

This past year, Metzger played soccer in the fall, basketball in winter and coed golf in spring.

“I’m usually hanging out with friends,” Beltran said. “We go play pickleball, and then go to the soccer field, kick the ball around a little bit.”

Metzger and Branch both play cello in the junior and senior high school orchestra.

“It’s just a fun class to take,” Branch said. “It’s challenging, but you’re with your friends, so it’s not too bad. And also, our teacher — Mr. [Cody] McKesson — he’s probably one of the best. Such a chill guy.”

Beltran said STEM is more his style, with his favorite class being Algebra II.

“I’m pretty good at math,” he said. “I mean, I’m a year up ahead. It’s pretty cool to me, honestly, especially the teacher, Mr. [James] Vogler, taught me a lot of new things this year.”

Future

Branch, the MVP for the middle school team, scored four goals in the Verde Valley championship game, with Sedona winning 7-1 over Cottonwood’s Dr. Daniel Bright School, and 36 goals throughout the season.

All three will play for the Sedona Red Rock High School varsity boys soccer team’s new winter season.

Branch, an incoming freshman, will play his first season at the high school.

Beltran, an incoming junior, and Metzger, an incoming sophomore, have been on the high school team since they left middle school, and went to the state championship game against the undefeated Highland Prep West Hornets on Nov. 1, when the Scorpions lost 2-0.

They plan to play until they graduate, at which point they hope to make it to college soccer.

“Me, personally, I want to go and play at the collegiate level,” Metzger said. “So, the goal is definitely D1 and then after that, hopefully play pro.”

Branch might see Metzger on the field then, too, because he said his goals are exactly the same.