Battle Mountain puts 6 boys on Colorado 4A all-state lacrosse team

To the victor go the spoils.

After a 15-3 season in which Battle Mountain advanced to the state semifinals, the Huskies placed six boys on the Colorado High School Activities Association (CHSAA) 4A all-state lacrosse team, which was released last week. Head coach Pat Doherty also won the Mike Goerne 4A coach of the year award.

“You know, we had a good season,” Doherty said. “More than anything else, it’s a testament to the team and the coaching staff we have and the boys putting in all the hard work.”

Battle Mountain goalie Seth Bamford and defender Eli Howard were named to the 26-member first-team while, Cash Case, Thomas Dekanich and Garret Ast earned second-team recognition and Jack Kovacik made honorable mention. Vail Mountain School’s Charlie Vidal (first-team), Jay McCormick (honorable mention) and Alex Krupka (honorable mention) and Eagle Valley’s Peter Boyd (second team) and Ian Bibler (honorable mention) also made the all-state team.

“The mountains were represented like I’ve never seen before,” Doherty stated. Receiving an award named after his old friend, Goerne, “truly meant a lot,” Doherty added. Goerne, who led Aspen to the 2015 state title, was killed in an avalanche in 2019. That was the year Doherty stepped away from coaching Battle Mountain, where he’d worked alongside Jerry Nichols from 2012-2018. He returned to the helm last season, leading the Huskies to a 9-8 record.

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“It was a little bit of a full-circle moment for me,” Doherty said of winning the award. The coach spoke of two areas where he’s grown over the course of his career. First, he’s learned trying “to fit square pegs into round holes” is a fruitless endeavor.

“I think when I first started, we were really trying hard to be ‘this has to be the way,'” Doherty said. “I’ve worked really hard to recognize the talents each player has and how they can fit into the team and (find) their roles.”

In watching 18 players graduate this spring, he’s also realized the importance of building a sustainable culture.

“This group of seniors is going to be really hard to replace, but I think they’ve done such a fantastic job of leading by example and doing what we asked of them as seniors,” the coach stated. “It will be cool to see how these younger guys step into these new roles.”

Battle Mountain opened its 2024 campaign with a 16-4 win over Vail Mountain School in Edwards in March. The Huskies cruised to a 9-0 start and brought a No. 2 state ranking into their April 15 rematch with the Gore Rangers. On that cold Monday afternoon, however, Charlie Vidal single-handedly dismantled his rivals’ perfect-record hopes, scoring seven goals to lead VMS to a 14-9 win.

“The VMS loss was important for us and our success, to be honest,” Doherty said. “I don’t think we would have been as seasoned or prepared going into some of these larger games if we were undefeated. I think to some degree, our boys felt like we were invincible, and that VMS loss was eye-opening for sure.”

Doherty said the aim at practices remained “getting 1% better every day.”

“As coaches, we knew we had a good team, but we just really had to work hard to make sure the boys stayed focused and progressed on everything we were doing,” Doherty added.

The battle-tested Huskies turned the sting of a 6-5 loss to Steamboat Springs into a season-finale win against Glenwood Springs and a playoff over Holy Family on May 10. Four days later, a last-second goal propelled Battle Mountain past Telluride in a back-and-forth state quarterfinal, setting up a semifinal trip to the University of Denver to face defending state-runner up Erie.

The Huskies held the star-studded Tigers to a 2-2 tie midway through the second-quarter. Eventually, however, 4A state player of the year Liam Connors broke loose for eight goals in the 17-2 runaway win.

“They had some very talented players on that team and it was hard to stop those guys for sure,” Doherty said of Erie, which went on to claim a 14-6 win over Northfield in the championship. In the final locker room meeting, Doherty praised his seniors for a job well done.

“The message to the younger guys was, hey, this is the bar now,” he said.

“Going to play at DU was a huge, amazing experience for the entire team,” he said. “They saw what it took and the leadership it took to get there and hopefully they grab onto it and run with it, and we’ll see it again next year and the year after.”