NIWOT — The bright red color of Mead sophomore Katy Adler’s ‘road rash’ looked more like wet paint against the Mavericks’ cream jerseys. Her freshman teammate, Madelyn Wright, looked more like a seasoned vet.
Adler showed guts in Mead’s 6-0 win at Niwot Wednesday night. Wright showed out.
In her third varsity game, Wright scored her first career goal and finished with a hat trick in an 11-minute span in the second half. She polished off a rebound in the 46th minute, scored from inside the box in the 52nd and put a chance in from outside of the box, off the crossbar in the 57th.
It helped the Mavericks improve to 3-0 to start the spring season, now outscoring teams 12-0.
“It was insane,” said Adler, who is Mavs coach Shane Adler’s cousin. “This was one of the best games I’ve seen her play. She followed shots, took open shots — it was amazing.”
Adler finished with an assist, pushing her team lead in points to nine through three games.
Not shown on the box score, Adler helped Mead control play and create chances while getting a bit beat up.
By game’s end, she’d suffered a glowing bruise on her thigh, taken more than one incidental shot to her ankle and had a ball nail her in the back of the head.
Worth it, she said.
“She’s a tough player. She’ll work hard,” Coach Adler said. “And that great thing about her is she loves to create for her teammates whether she has the ball or not.”
Averi Williams, Addison Martinez and Brooke Boatman also scored for the Mavericks, who are looking to build upon last year’s first round exit despite their youth. And despite losing their program leader in points and goals — Averi’s sister, Haley.
In a fourth straight win over the Cougars, the Mavericks saw two freshmen score in Wright and Boatman.
They got another from sophomore Addison Martinez, who scored her first of the season. And one from Averi, who scored eight last season, second to her sister’s 27.
“I think we as a team have put our mind to our goals and we’re ready to go after them,” Wright said. “We know if we work as a team we can take down those bigger teams and older teams.”
Niwot (1-3) lost its third straight following an overtime win over Centaurus earlier in the month.
Stephen Dimit, the boys’ coach who took over the girls’ program on an interim basis, hopes he can use the lopsided loss for good.
“We’re a team that’s pretty young,” he said. “We went very young for most of that second half, so players could learn and grow. I told them it’s not all negative because we can come back and get better after that.”
Niwot is at Silver Creek Saturday. Mead is at Steamboat Springs.
