No. 1 Battle Mountain girls lacrosse wins matchup of top-2 teams in Colorado

The Battle Mountain girls lacrosse team faced its first real challenge of the season on Saturday. Before the No. 1-ranked Huskies — who’d outscored opponents 165-32 coming into the weekend — went to battle against No. 2 Golden, head coach Mat Ballay relayed a simple message to his squad: play as a team.

“That’s what [we’ve] been preaching all year,” he said. “If we focus on being good teammates, we’re comfortable with the outcome.”

In the end, the objective outcome was as good as the philosophical starting point.

After jumping out to a 7-1 lead, the Huskies rallied together for a 9-7 win on a cloudy afternoon in Edwards. In holding off the Demons’ late charge, goalies Hallie Holleman and Huntley Blue perhaps embodied Ballay’s team-first message the best. The pair split halves — like they have all season — and thwarted dozens of worthy zingers from a junior-heavy Golden squad to protect Battle Mountain’s perfect mark.

“We kept the pressure going through the third quarter and then towards the fourth; we let them get a little bit up,” Holleman said. “But we pushed through and locked them down at the end.”

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Abbie Rowe scored twice in the first half and freshman Mia Eaton drilled a penalty shot with 55.7 seconds left in the second quarter to put the Huskies up 4-1 going into the break. With 6:42 left in the third quarter, Addie O’Connor squeezed a pass into the middle, where Caroline Provencher made the goalie pay with her first goal of the day. Provencher would score again four minutes later — and Izzy Kovacik added the first of her two goals in between — to make it 7-1 going into the final period.

Golden stormed back in the fourth quarter. Captain Katie Hufford scored at the 10:56 mark and teammate Tatum Pyatt scored just 10 seconds later. Pyatt found the back of the net again to make it 7-4 with 9:47 left. As a dark cloud moved in over Edwards, the wind had clearly changed direction on the field as well.

“This is a momentum game,” Ballay admitted. “Teams go on swings and you have to respond.”

Kovacik did exactly that. The University of Akron recruit notched her second goal of the game to give the Huskies some breathing room with 7:58 on the clock. Golden beat Battle Mountain in transition off the draw repeatedly, however, and Hufford scored three more times in the quarter, bringing the gap to two with just over five minutes to go. The Huskies responded by sliding a fifth defender downfield — a similar strategy employed by the Demons in the first half.

“But we were probably a goal or two too late, honestly,” Ballay admitted. “Because they pumped a few in before we made that adjustment.”

Holleman said she could sense the pressure during the fourth.

“I just had to zone it all out,” she said.

Blue and Holleman — defensive partners on the ice during the hockey season — support each other on the field, especially when the other is feeling the heat.

“There’s only so much you can do when it’s coming at you so hard,” said Blue, who always runs to her fellow goaltender first after a game.

“Because we understand what’s going on in our position,” Blue continued. “When we get in those modes where we’re getting beat, we have each other to just be like, ‘It’s fine. It doesn’t matter.’ And our team is so good. We have a great team to back us up all the way.”

“Those two are really cool,” Ballay said before describing the pair’s “relationship and development as goalies” as being “instrumental” to the team’s success. Additionally, the dual threat adds a wrinkle for opponents.

“It makes our team more difficult to play against,” Ballay continued. “They’re different goalies and they have different strengths; one’s a righty, one’s a lefty — and we love what they bring to the team as far as attitude.”

With Golden tightening the screws, Kate Kovacik rifled in a shot from the right side with 2:57 remaining to seal the deal. While Hufford was able to peel past Izzy Kovacik around the edge and launch a right-handed score with 1:22 left, the Huskies held on to improve to 10-0 on the year. Ballay also praised the play of senior Katherine Desmond, who shifted from attack to defense during her junior season to fill a need.

“She’s just a calm, vocal presence down there,” Ballay said of Desmond. “I think she’s doing a phenomenal job anchoring that defense.”

On April 9, Battle Mountain beat Roaring Fork — the No. 3-ranked team in 4A — 14-4. The Huskies have also beaten No. 5 Steamboat Springs by 10 and 14 points in two league matchups this spring. In fact, Saturday’s win was just the second time an opponent has lost to the Huskies by a single-digit margin. Ballay seemed happy it wasn’t a blowout, as his team was forced to navigate an uncomfortable situation with resilience and composure. In other words, if this was the first real test of the season, the Huskies passed.

“It was a really tight game and it’s easy in those moments — you know, you’re out of timeouts, I’ve used timeouts to try and change momentum — where you’ve got to respond on feel,” he said. “That’s up to the players. We saw that. It was a total team win.”