GREENWOOD VILLAGE – The state tournament semifinals are in the books and the Colorado field hockey state championship game opponents are set.
Set to be played at 6 p.m. on Wednesday at the Cherry Creek School District’s Stutler Bowl Stadium, this year’s state final will feature No. 1 Colorado Academy and No. 2 Regis Jesuit. The two teams have combined to win the last four state titles, with Regis Jesuit winning three of the last four and the past two.
(1) Colorado Academy 3, (5) Arapahoe 2 (OT)
For the second year in a row, the Colorado Academy field hockey team is back in the state championship game.
On Tuesday night at Stutler Bowl, the top-seeded Mustangs gutted out a tough overtime victory, 3-2, over No. 5 Arapahoe. The Mustangs had the lead twice and each time, the up-and-coming Arapahoe team that beat Cherry Creek in the quarterfinals fought back to even the score.
In the end, it took a heroic goal from junior Zoe Martin in the beginning of overtime to send the Mustangs onward.
“It felt amazing. Like, better than anything ever,” said Martin, who is committed to the University of Michigan. “Arapahoe is an amazing opponent. To have such a great game against them and to go into overtime, it was great that it ended on a high for us. We’ve come in as the No. 1 seed and we’re just so pumped up and we feel deserving of that. We’re so excited to go out and play tomorrow night.”
Colorado Academy senior Sophie Brants opened the scoring early in the first quarter. The opening goal was answered less than a minute later with a tying score from Arapahoe’s Brynn Dzengelewski.
The teams remained tied until the fourth quarter, when Martin notched her first goal of the game to give the Mustangs their second lead of the contest. This time with 1 minute, 6 seconds remaining in the game, Dzengelewski scored to even up the game once again.
“They’re such a good, strong opponent and they always come out with a fight and a battle,” Colorado Academy head coach Veronica Scott said. “You have to come out here for these games and respect your opponent, and that’s all you can do. You work hard and see who wins the battle. And it was a battle.”
Off a penalty corner just 1:08 into overtime, Martin knocked in the game-winner. Her pair of scores pushed Martin’s state-leading total to 27 goals.
Dzengelewski will finish the season second with 19 goals and a state-leading 16 assists for the Warriors, who reached the semifinals for the second straight season.
“We worked hard all season and we really felt like we could do well against any team,” Arapahoe head coach Paul Lewis said. “We came up a little bit short but, obviously, it was really close.”
(2) Regis Jesuit 1, (3) Kent Denver 0
The two-time defending champion Regis Jesuit hockey team has been taking every team’s best shot and expected nothing less from No. 3 Kent Denver in the state semifinals on Tuesday night at Cherry Creek School District’s Stutler Bowl Stadium.
The No. 2 Raiders got every bit the endurance match they expected, embattled in a defensive stalemate for three quarters until senior Emily Bradac scored the eventual game-winner with 8 minutes, 33 seconds left in the fourth. With a hard-fought victory in hand, the well-prepared Raiders went to sleep Tuesday night knowing their game plan was successful and that they had a date with No. 1 Colorado Academy in the finals on Wednesday night.
It will be the Raiders fifth straight appearance in the title game.
“We definitely came in knowing it was going to be a hard game and knowing it was going to be a competitive one,” Bradac said. “At practice, we worked on overtime stuff, so we were ready to go into that. It was a tough one and they definitely brought their best game, but we were ready for it.”
Bradac, who is third on the team with seven goals, broke Tuesday’s defensive battle open on a reverse sweep late in the game. The win marked the 10th game this season in which the Raiders did not allow a goal. Three of the nine total goals the team has allowed all season came during a pair of losses to the top-seeded Colorado Academy squad the Raiders will face on Wednesday night.
With a chance at revenge looming, Bradac said she has been proud of how her team has handled the lofty expectations constantly heaped onto the defending champions. Without that, she would not have the opportunity to play in a third title game as a varsity player.
“I’m stoked about it,” Bradac said. “It’s definitely a lot of excitement to keep holding that title, but it also adds a lot of pressure sometimes and I’m really proud of my team for standing up to that pressure. We’re a tight-knit team and we have a ton of fun, and people manage the pressure well. It’s definitely something you have to do when you’re on the Regis team.”
For Regis Jesuit head coach Spencer Wagner, Tuesday’s game played out much the way he and the Raiders expected it to. He was pleased to see the defending champions’ defense hold the game scoreless until someone (Bradac) could break the ice.
“I think we were waiting for the fourth quarter,” Wagner said. “We kept fighting, kept being patient and waited for that fourth quarter to come around. That’s when we got a couple of penalty corners in a row because we were still hustling. We capitalized on that. We got one of them in, that’s all it took and shoutout to our defense for shutting them down for the rest of it because that was a lot of running.”