GRAND FORKS — The Grand Forks Central and Red River High School soccer teams are rivals on the pitch.

But when the school’s players are training on the turf at Grand Forks Sports Academy, they’re often competing side by side.

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Brian Gutierrez, an assistant coach with the Roughriders and the owner of CrossFit Tundra, installed a section of turf inside of his gym in December of 2023. What had been on the minds of Gutierrez and other area coaches had finally come to fruition: Grand Forks had an indoor facility equipped for soccer.

Since then, GFSA has become an asset for the local prep programs, providing a space for both skill work and conditioning. Though the turf isn’t the length of a full field, there’s plenty of room for technical work such as dribbling, cutting, passing, shooting and receiving.

During the season, both the Riders and Knights will make occasional use of the facility when scheduling or weather necessitates. Instead of trying to work around the crowded scheduling at the Pollard Athletic Center at UND or simply practicing on a gym floor, GFSA has offered an accessible indoor option for the programs.

“It’s just a different game,” Red River boys head coach Patrick Colter said. “They play on turf all the time, practicing on grass is even so much different than playing on turf. So you get onto a gym floor, it’s just a different sport. Some skills are still the same, you can still work on a lot of things, but there’s just nothing quite like playing on the turf.”

Beyond its use as an in-season practice facility, one of GFSA’s strongest assets has been its private and semi-private coaching sessions for area athletes. Players from pre-Kindergarten to college make use of the facilities to continue developing, even during the offseason.

Red River and Central’s boys and girls teams are both well represented in those training sessions.

“(Gutierrez) wants to provide a positive, beneficial soccer experience regardless of who you are or what school you’re going to,” Central girls head coach George DuBois said. “Kudos to him for putting athletes first and not caring about who you are or where you come from.”

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GFSA boasts an array of coaches and players from both programs on its staff. Former Red River boys head coach Luke Glasoe, Central boys head coach Austin Englerth, Colter and Gutierrez are just a few of the prominent local soccer figures who make up the coaching staff at the academy.

“I can’t credit enough to the group of individuals that come in and make it happen,” Gutierrez said. “Guys like Patrick who are willing to step in, and guys like Luke, all the coaching staff just doing their part to make it work.”

Both of the girls programs at Red River and Central have made massive strides in recent seasons. The Roughriders and Knights put that development on display at this year’s North Dakota Class A state tournament, finishing third and fifth, respectively.

Though there are a host of factors at play, a few of the area coaches believe that the player’s willingness to partake in the academy’s training, especially during the offseason, played a role in this year’s successes.

“I’ve been at Red River for 13 years, and I’ve had a lot of good teams, but the idea that now these kids are able to train throughout the winter, it kind of shows that Grand Forks has always been under the radar in the soccer community in the state,” Glasoe said. “I would say what Brian facilitated for the girls teams this winter was really impactful for how successful they were.”

Colter, who grew up playing soccer in Grand Forks and eventually at Red River, used to travel to Fargo three times a week to train. With the indoor training offered at GFSA, he hopes to give area players a year-round option that’s a little closer to home — an option he didn’t have during his playing career.

“We’ve had quite a few kids, especially with the boys programs, who still (travel), but we’re starting to try to bring them back to Grand Forks and give them the opportunities that they get in Fargo,” Colter said. “If this would’ve been an opportunity for me as a kid, I never would’ve traveled to Fargo for it. I would have been here all the time.”