Valor Christian boys lacrosse gets second half rally to beat Palmer

Dan Mohrmann/CHSAANow.com

COLORADO SPRINGS — Valor Christian may have found one of the best ways to carry momentum into the Class 4A state lacrosse tournament.

Down by three goals, halfway through the third quarter, the Eagles exploded on offense, scoring the final four goals of the game to beat Palmer 6-5. The win came against a team from a higher class and on senior night.

“A couple of guys on the field were keeping level heads and telling us to keep calm,” sophomore midfielder Sean Traynor said. “We knew we were still in because we knew we could come into this game and take on a 5A team.”

But it was the way in which they took on this 5A team that really stood out.

The 5A CHSAANow.com No. 5-ranked Terrors (12-3 overall) were coming off a rough loss to Mountain Vista and were honoring their seniors for their final home game. Combined with the fact that the Eagles (11-4) were without their starting goaltender Logan Lee and it would be an easy assumption to make that it would be Palmer’s night.

But freshman goalie Aiden Columbia was up to the challenge. He surrendered two quick goals to start the second half, giving Palmer a 5-2 lead, but would shut the Terrors out the rest of the way.

“Our freshman came in and stood on his head,” Eagles coach John Grant said. “I couldn’t be prouder of that young man.”

The Terrors jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead thanks to Ike Mahan cleaning up a loose ball in front of the Valor net. Traynor tied it up 31 seconds later before Palmer would go on a 4-1 run, taking a 5-2 lead.

And with that kind of lead and a goalie like Caleb Espinoza in net, a comeback was going to be difficult. But the Eagles kept their heads in the game and their freshman goalie was more than ready for the challenge ahead of him.

“I was so amped up for today,” Columbia said. “Everybody was a supporting and I was so ready to do this for my teammates and not for myself.”

He kept his teammates in it and then watched as they began to chip away at the Terrors’ lead. Dalton Ziegler, Grayson Goodyear and Lance Tillman each put one in net to get the game squared away with just over ten minutes remaining in the game.

A minute later, Traynor took another shot at the net and while Espinoza was able to tip it, the ball still found the net to give Valor the 6-5.

“I couldn’t have done it without my teammates,” Traynor said. “Both my goals were assisted and without the team we couldn’t get any of the goals that we got.”

Both teams now await the release of the state brackets, which will happen on Monday.

It was a tough final two games for the Terrors, but coach Sequoia Bowan knows that playing tough teams down the stretch is only going to make his players battle-tested for next week.

“Each game we play, we hope to learn from it and grow and get better for the next one,” Bowan said. “We have a lot of things to work on. We have the weekend to work on them and then we’ll see how the seeding works.”