Colorado Academy girls lacrosse is headed back to the championship game. (Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
DENVER — Bridget Sutter came up huge for Colorado Academy in the final minutes, and helped her team secure a return trip to the girls lacrosse championship game.
Sutter, the Mustangs’ junior goalie and the reigning player of the year, made two key saves in the final minute-and-a-half of 9-8 a semifinal win against Kent Denver on Saturday at DU’s Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium. Colorado Academy, the top seed and defending champion, has now won 28 consecutive games.
“We have 100 percent confidence in Bridget,” Colorado Academy coach Steph Sanders said after the game. “I think she is one of our best leaders. So to have the ball on the defense and feel really good about the ball being down there is kind of a nice thing for a coach.”
First, Sutter made a save on Kent Denver star Erin O’Shaughnessy as she broke in alone toward the crease with 1:22 remaining. Then, with 55 seconds remaining, she held off a free-position attempt.
“I was thinking, ‘If I save it, then that’s a good thing. If they score, then it’s probably overtime, so we can have another chance,'” Sutter said. “I wasn’t too worried about that, but it was in the back of my mind that it could have possibly been our last game.”
(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
The two teams met earlier this season, a 14-5 Colorado Academy win in April. But this time, in the semifinals with so much on the line, was different.
Kent Denver led 5-3 late in the first half before the Mustangs’ Claire Wright scored with 12.9 seconds remaining to cut it to 5-4 at the break.
“Throughout the first half, we weren’t working as a team,” Sutter said.
Added Sanders: “We made some adjustments on our attack. A lot of it was just dropped balls. We were just kind of having some stick-work issues that we needed to work out. I think the girls were nervous. I just told them, ‘Calm down. This is it, so put everything out there.'”
The adjustments worked. Colorado Academy opened the half with five consecutive goals to build a 9-5 lead with 11:32 to play.
But Kent wasn’t done. The Sun Devils battled back, and eventually made it 9-8 with five minutes remaining. They had a number of chances to even the game, including the two attempts in the final minutes, but Sutter and the CA defense turned away each one.
Maddie Webster led Colorado Academy with three goals, while Sydney Prokupek added two goals and an assist.
Rachel Cowan led Kent Denver with three goals of her own, and goalie Gabby Kinney had an outstanding day.
With the win, Colorado Academy heads back to the title game with a chance to defend their championship. And yet, that’s not how the Mustangs see it.
“As our coach says every time, we’re not defending a championship — we’re going after another,” Sutter said. “So we’re not focusing on the streak, because we don’t really know about it. But we’re not defending anything. We’re going after our own title.”
Said Sanders: “What I’ve told them is that it doesn’t matter what’s happened in the past, it doesn’t matter who you are, it doesn’t matter your ranking, how many goals you’ve scored. It’s all about how you show up for that game.
“And for us, all season long, we’ve seen every team’s best game. We have a huge target on our back, and we just need to focus on ourselves and getting our team to the best team we can be. And if we’re the best team we can be, we’ll have positive results.”
(3) Cherry Creek 10, (2) Mullen 9
(Ryan Casey/CHSAANow.com)
Cherry Creek girls lacrosse reached the state championship game for the 19th-consecutive season with a narrow 10-9 win over Mullen on Saturday. It means the Bruins continued their streak of reaching the championship in every season of the sanctioned history of the sport.
Pearl Schwartz led the Bruins with three goals, while Eliza Radochonski added a pair.
The win avenged Cherry Creek’s only loss this season — a 9-7 defeat to Mullen in their regular season finale. Now, the Bruins get a chance to avenge another loss: Colorado Academy beat Cherry Creek in last year’s championship.
After a low-scoring start to Saturday’s semifinal, Cherry Creek grabbed a 5-4 lead at halftime. They pushed that lead to 7-5 early in the second half, but Mullen responded to take an 8-7 lead with 15:42 to play.
Cherry Creek took a timeout at that point, and Schwartz tied the game on a free-position goal a minute-and-a-half after that. She then gave her team the lead for good with another goal with 11:24 to play.
Mullen’s Payton Gabriel and Emme Johnson each had a hat trick to lead the Mustangs, who were in the semifinals for the first time in program history.
The girls lacrosse championship is at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at DU.