Huskies boys lacrosse stepped up game

coached is to push these guys to the limit, because it’s amazing how far they can go.”

BY ALEX K.W. SCHULTZ SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA

is year’s Douglas County High School boys lacrosse team recorded the program’s best season in 14 years.

e Huskies’ goalie denied 71% of the shots slung at him — the best save percentage in Colorado and the 32nd-best mark in America.

eir team captain and faceo specialist won two out of every three faceo s he vied for — good enough for 18th-best in the state and eighth-best among Class 5A players.

Not bad numbers — not bad at all for a program that almost didn’t have a season two years ago.

In late December 2021, a mere 11 weeks before their rst game of the 2022 season, the Huskies were without a coach and had just 14 players on the roster.

Fateful phone call e previous coach had left, and nding his replacement had proved more di cult than anticipated.

One day over the school’s winter break, then-Douglas County athletic director Je Gardella picked up the phone and made a call to Chad Cavey, who didn’t have any lacrosse playing experience on his resume but had spent the last 15 years coaching the game at various levels.

“[Gardella] called me and said, `We don’t have a coach. Are you willing to step up?’” recalled Cavey, who played baseball at Mullen and football at Colorado College. “I grew up coming [to Castle Rock] to play on youth teams and in high school. e thought of Douglas County not having a program was a really hard pill to swallow. I wasn’t about to let that happen.”

And so, Cavey got to work. He still didn’t know if he’d be the full-time coach by the time Doulgas County’s season opener on March 20 rolled around, but he proceeded as if he would be. He organized a winter league and had the bare-bones team practice once a week and participate in a scrimmage once a week.

“I was kind of guessing I’d be the full-time coach. I mean, it was a couple months before the season started and they still didn’t have a head coach,”

Cavey said. “I started coaching right away so they’d be prepared, whether I was going to be the coach or not.” e 56-year-old coach brought in some new lieutenants to assist him, including 24-year-old Elijah Chapa, who played lacrosse at Colorado Mesa University, and Frank Eich, who captained Army’s lacrosse team in the 1970s (Eich was featured in a 1972 New York Times article for his three-goal performance in Army’s 10-9 upset win over previously undefeated Maryland). e new coaches taught and pushed, and the young players listened and bought in.

Cavey did eventually become the head man, leading the 2022 Huskies to a 6-9 record overall and a 3-4 mark in 5A League #1 play — not bad at all given the preseason circumstances.

“It was pretty rough,” Huskies goalie Carter Holvick said of the months leading up to the 2022 season and, really, the previous couple seasons. “Nobody really took our team seriously. We weren’t very competitive or anything.

We just came to practice. ere was no at all changed when Cavey arrived.

Chapa and Eich brought a kind of discipline and structure and toughness that had been missing from the program.

“ ese kids are amazing. ey’re sponges,” Cavey said. “One of the things I’ve learned over all the years I’ve

How far the 2023 Huskies went was quite remarkable in light of the program’s recent history. ey won seven of their rst nine games. at ninegame stretch included a season-opening 18-2 dismantling of Palmer and a come-from-behind 12-10 win over Boulder, a team that humbled Douglas County 16-1 the year before.

Thumb woes pay o e strong start didn’t come without some adversity, though.

In early April, Holvick, who scored six goals in the Huskies’ rst two games, broke his thumb in an o - eld incident.

“I couldn’t play because I couldn’t close the glove,” Holvick said. “I thought my season was over.”

And then?

“I was in bed one night and I thought, `I’ll go play goalie. I don’t need my thumb for goalie.’”

Wait, goalie? For someone who had been an attackman his whole lacrosse life? Goalie for someone who had never practiced at the position — not even once?

Yep. And Holvick was a natural.

In his rst game in the cage, against Smoky Hill on April 19, Holvick pitched a shutout, recording seven saves in a 12-0 win over the Bu aloes. at e ort landed him player-of-the-game honors.

Five days later, against Denver North, Holvick tallied seven more saves and allowed just one Vikings shot to sneak past him. e Huskies won 16-1. Holvick’s 92 total saves were a big reason why Douglas County went on to have an 8-5 season (5-3 in league play) — the program’s rst winning season since 2009.

“I honestly have no idea,” Holvick said when asked how he was able to pull o the attack-to-goalie transition so seamlessly. “ ree weeks or so (after the injury), I probably could have gone