A trying opening season tab for the Fairview girls lacrosse program loosened like an oversized belt, and the silver-lining perspective following tight losses to the last two teams standing from a year ago was succeeded with a no-doubt, 15-1 victory over Fruita Monument Friday afternoon.
With many of the Knights players fine-tuning left-handed shots in the second half at Nevin Platt Middle School, it was a far cry from the competitive 8-6 loss to 5A No. 1 defending champ Colorado Academy to start the spring season, or the 10-9 defeat to No. 3 Valor Christian that followed.
Quickly and surgically, Class 5A’s fourth-ranked team picked apart the Grand Junction school in a game that rarely got behind the host’s midfield.
“Originally, we had two games scheduled that were canceled because of the snow, so we weren’t supposed to play CA and Valor, one-two,” coach Kelsey Sheridan said. “But there was definitely some silver lining to it. I think if we saw them a little later in the season, we would have had stuff cleaned up.”
Looked plenty sparkly Friday.
As heavy gusts of wind slanted across the field behind the school, junior attacker Cami Johnson had a hat trick before many parents could get settled in, notching her three in the first 2 minutes, 4 seconds.
Tessa McCollester added her second goal of the game to kick in the 10-goal mercy-rule running clock with 1:57 left in the half. Then after Fruita Monument recorded its first shot 2:47 into the second, Tessa’s sister Gabriella followed with four more goals as the Knights spent much of the rest of the game working in less experienced players off the bench while practicing different techniques.
“We have a lot of new talent this year, our freshmen are very, very good,” said Johnson, who believes this team can go further than their 2021 state quarterfinals exit. “We just want to be more consistent because last year we did fall off a little bit. We want to carry the strength all the way through and keep getting better.”
Johnson now leads the team with seven goals in three games. The McCollester freshmen sisters each have six, while the other pair of sisters on roster, Ava and Mia Welty, each got their first goals of the season.
Early on, Johnson capped off a pair of feeds from Finnley Dancy, then squirmed by defenders left of the goal to net another in pushing the lead to 3-0. Tessa McCollester added her first of the game 19 seconds later, and the Knights got other goals from Mia Reinke, Abigail Day, Allie Hartman and Lily Zygowicz.
Dancy finished with three helpers to push her season total to a team-high five. Lucy Connors had two assists, Emerson Massimino one.
Fruita Monument’s lone goal came from Kendall Roehm with 13:52 remaining.
“It was tough to come off a loss like (CA and Valor), especially when they were really close games,” Johnson said. “We still had our head up because we knew they were both really good games. … I think the energy coming off those was high.”
Fairview (1-2) will travel to face Arapahoe Wednesday.
