Prep notebook: Battle Mountain defeats Aspen 5-2 in boys lacrosse
The Eagle Valley boys and the Battle Mountain boys and girls lacrosse teams are all undefeated to start the year
Sloane Thompson/Courtesy photo
It’s early, but things are looking good for Eagle County’s high school lacrosse teams.
The Eagle Valley boys are 1-0 and both Battle Mountain squads are undefeated. The Battle Mountain boys started the 2024 campaign with consecutive victories against 4A Western Slope squads it failed to beat each of the last two seasons.
After a weather cancellation of their original season-opener against Mullen, the Huskies defeated Vail Mountain School 16-4 last Friday. It was Battle Mountain’s first win over the Gore Rangers since 2019. The Huskies followed it up with a 5-2 win against Aspen in Edwards on Monday night.
“Obviously both games were huge for us,” head coach Pat Doherty said.
“You don’t really know what you have until you see it on the field and the boys came out against VMS and played one of the best all-around team games I’ve seen in a really long time. The offense was clicking, the defense was playing lights out, our shots were hitting the cage and things were good.”
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Things weren’t as smooth against Aspen, Doherty said. The Skiers rallied around their all-state goalie, junior Treven Ward, employing a stifling zone defense for the entire game.
“Aspen had a really good game plan,” Doherty said. “It was hard to score goals and we really had to grind longer and harder than we were anticipating, both on offense and defense.”
Jack Kovacik put the Huskies up 1-0 after the first and senior captain Thomas Dekanich gave the team a 3-0 lead with two second-quarter scores going into the half. Landon Thurber and Ryan Rigney scored for the Skiers before Husky junior Keelan Losa put the game away in the final period.
The heated nature of any Aspen/Battle Mountain game produced several Husky penalties, but Doherty praised his defense for “standing on its head” to kill multiple, multi-minute shorthanded situations.
“Both goalies played phenomenal,” he said regarding the play of Seth Bamford, who had five saves, and Cash Case, who added seven.
The other takeaway for the coach was accuracy — or lack thereof. The Huskies took 32 shots in the game, “and only 16 of those were on the cage,” the coach observed.
“So, we got to be better at shooting for sure. We have to make the goalie make saves.”
Still, Battle Mountain scored when it counted, and scored more than their opponents.
“It was a great win, but I think everyone walked out of that game a little more hungry than a normal win knowing we definitely could have played better,” Doherty said of Battle Mountain’s first victory over Aspen since 2021.
The Huskies travel to Summit on Friday before heading to Gypsum on March 30 to face Eagle Valley. The Devils are 1-0 after defeating the Tigers 8-7 last Friday.
Alex Smiley scored five goals and Peter Boyd added three more and assist in the win.
The Battle Mountain girls lacrosse team also continued its undefeated start to the year, defeating Montrose 18-2 on Saturday.
Nine Huskies scored goals in the win. Isabelle Adochio led the way with five, Molly Kessenich added four, and Adelaide O’Connor had three.
Battle Mountain (4-0) clashes with league-rival Aspen (3-1) Tuesday night. Last March, the Huskies handed the Skiers their first Western Slope loss since the 2015 season.
