A back-and-forth contest got away from the Fairview girls lacrosse team late in the second half Saturday and ultimately ended the Knights’ season.
Visiting Regis Jesuit closed the Class 5A quarterfinal playoff game by outscoring Fairview 6-1 to advance to the semifinals with an 11-7 victory. The No. 6 seed Raiders will face No. 2 seed Valor Christian, a 17-7 winner over No. 7 seed Kent Denver.
No. 3 seed Fairview, whose season included an eight-game winning streak to begin the campaign and an 11-10 victory over Regis in league play, finished with an 8-3 record.
In a game that saw four ties and four lead changes, the Knights trailed 5-4 at halftime. A pair of quick goals gave Fairview a 6-5 lead in the second half, but it would be the last time the home team would hold a scoring advantage.
Freshman Finnley Dancey and senior Isabela Bloomquist scored the tying and go-ahead goals to begin the second half. It was Bloomquist’s second goal of the game. Her first tied the game at 3-3 after the Knights had fallen behind 3-1.
“I think we fought hard,” Bloomquist said. “We gave it our all. Obviously Regis is a great opponent and they came out firing. I am really happy with the way we played and I think we fought hard til the end.”
After Bloomquist gave the Knights their last lead, the Raiders scored four unanswered goals, two by senior Grace Weigand, who finished with four on the day.
Cami Johnson scored for Fairview to cut the Regis lead to 9-7, but Carly Kennedy scored a pair to finish the scoring for the Raiders.
In addition to scoring the final goal for the Knights, Johnson also scored the first of the game for Fairview. However, that was followed by three straight by the visitors. Sophomore Allie Hartman and Bloomquist’s back-to-back goals tied it at 3-3.
After the Raiders went ahead 4-3, sophomore Mia Reinke tied it a second time at 4-4 for the Knights. Regis got one more goal before halftime to take a one-goal advantage into the break.
“They came out firing and we just wanted to match that energy because they have a lot of energy,” Bloomquist said. “We played well. We played with energy and kept fighting back. We went into it thinking we had a target on our backs and we had to keep crawling back into it. We held our own for a while.”
