![]() That’s what you have to do in games and moments like that.” “We went out there and executed it and stuck together like brothers. ![]() “We were composed, we knew what we were capable of doing,” he said. Palasz played the game with a bum wrist and finished it with blood dripping down his ear and onto his face, but he was proud that his team never got too discouraged and fought back. Meanwhile, Palasz and company surged to seven-straight goals and a lead as large as 9-5 early in the fourth quarter.Ī penalty on a hit on Quillan Gulick with just 2.1 seconds left in the opening half proved large, as Mountain Vista scored two of those goals on the man advantage and kept going from there. Nobody returned, it’s a bunch of young kids and we balled out the last three quarters.” “We had a very rough start and you never want to do that, but to only give up four goals in the last three quarters just shows the amount of work we put in on defense,” Ward said. Junior Brody Reedy and his fellow defenders and Ward played an exceptional third quarter in which Valor Christian failed to score and the scoreless stretch went more than 25 minutes until Ham’s goal nearly five minutes into the final period. They are the ones that believed that we could get back into it and that’s exactly what the seniors did for us.” “The leadership from our seniors was absolutely amazing,” Plitnick said. Valor Christian (17-2) won the first meeting between the two teams by a 10-4 score on April 28 and got off to a fast start in the rematch with an opening period that saw Blake Ham, Baden Brown, LSM Luke Alread and Rush LaSelle score goals.īut Mountain Vista’s defense tightened up in the second period and held the Eagles scoreless for the final 9:21 of the first half, while they crept within a goal at the break on a goal by senior Ethan Pearson and the first of a handful from Palasz. That proved to be about the only regret coach Matt Plitnick’s Golden Eagles (16-3) could have had over the final three quarters as they put the sting of last season’s loss to Arapahoe in the state final behind them to win a title to match the one they took in 2021 (also against Valor Christian). “Then it hit the bar and I was crushed, so disappointed.? This (the state championship) is definitely more important than the goal, but it would have been nice.” “In our first playoff game against Castle View, I had one that the goalie saved, but this one looked like it was perfect,” Ward said. Thankfully, senior Joel Palasz scored five goals and Mountain Vista’s offense did enough without a score from its goalie as it captured a second straight championship in three seasons. In the middle of his team’s second-half rally, Ward dialed up a shot that traveled the length of the field, took a hop towards an empty net, but bounced off the top of the crossbar and over the goal. The Mountain Vista senior goalie had the Class 5A boys lacrosse state championship to celebrate with his team - courtesy of a rousing 10-8 victory over second-seeded Valor Christian at Peter Barton Stadium at the University of Denver - but one thing could have made it perfect. ![]() DENVER - A fantastic night could have been better for Brant Ward Monday.
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