Sabercats girls falter in lacrosse finals

Mead’s 13-5 victory ends

Castle View season

BY JIM BENTON SPECIAL TO COLORADO COMMUNITY MEDIA

Castle View’s excellent girls lacrosse season came tumbling down in the CHSAA state nals on May 19 at the University of Denver’s Peter Barton lacrosse stadium..

e top-seeded Sabercats couldn’t keep up with No. 2 seed Mead and lost 13-5 to the Longmont school.

Castle View, which edged Mead 7-6 in the season opener, ended the season with a 17-2 record after being the state runner-up in 2021 and a semi nal loser last season.

Mead, a rst-year team with players from the St, Vrain school district, concluded the campaign with a 15-2 record.

“ e pressure is tough and it was a bad time to have a bad game” said Castle View coach Sammantha Silverman. “We played hard all season and we grew so much this season and it was really special to have time with this team.” e Mavericks had better draw control, played a solid defense, and Lucy Connors with seven goals sparked a spirited Mead o ense.

Castle View scored the rst goal of the title contest but then Mead took charge.

Senior Evie Tanella scored three times to spark the Sabercats.

Goals by Tanella and Riley Schultz got Castle View into a 3-3 tie in the rst half with

Castle Rock

but the Mavericks responded with three tallies in just over three minutes.

Tessa Boehm’s goal pulled the Sabercats to within 6-4 at halftime and Castle View started the second half with a good possession but then Mead scored seven straight goals to take a 13-4 lead.

Tanella’s third goal of the game was the only secondhalf score for Castle View and it did not come until there was 3:30 remaining in the game.

“We kind of hoped our defense would wake up in the second half but we kind of lost our footing and our steps a little bit,” Silverman said. “Especially with draw control, we had it down in the beginning but we were kind of losing it for some reason.

“ is is a family and we all support each other. ere were a lot of seniors on this team and it was hard to lose this game.” came back to win going away.

Tanella got the game winning goal in a 10-9 semi nal win over Green Mountain on May 17.

In the Class 5A championship game, top-seeded Colorado Academy defeated Regis Jesuit 11-6 at DU. In the semi nals, Colorado Academy ousted No. 4 Cherry Creek, 17-7 and Regis upset second seeded Valor Christian, 11-7.

“My leg is a little sore but I don’t feel it when I play,” she said. “I don’t know if I played my best but I tried my hardest. After the rain I just really wanted to go to play.”

Anika Sharma defeated Laird 6-1, 6-2, to win the individual title three days before the team title match.

Creek’s No. 1 singles player, senior Lorena Cedeno, lost the individual state title match to Fairview’s Quinn Bernthal but rebounded with a win over Bernthal on May 16.

“It was a makeup from last week,” said Cedeno. “I knew what I was going to do because we just played. I felt so much better. It was good. I knew what to do.”

Creek also got wins from its No.3 doubles team of Farrah Bendell and Zoey Hochstadt and the No 4 doubles pairing of Julia Karlberg and Zoey Hao. Bendell was part of the individual state championship team and Karlberg and Hao were also individual title winners.