BROOMFIELD — In the world of playoff lacrosse, “sudden death” takes on a different meaning.
Sarah Vail gave Holy Family’s girls one last gasp in their Class 4A playoff home opener against Pueblo West on Tuesday night, ensuring that their collective hearts will continue beating on in the postseason.
Vail played hero not once, but twice in the final seconds of both regulation and overtime, handing the 14-seed Tigers the 17-16 victory over a team that had dominated them in every facet of the game just a bit earlier.
She missed several free shot attempts in the final 45 seconds of regulation, only to finally sink a shot when the clock read 9:33. The refs awarded her another free shot with 2.23 seconds left in an otherwise scoreless overtime.
She didn’t waste it, netting her seventh goal of the afternoon.
“I couldn’t get (the free shots) in,” Vail said. “I was in my head a little bit, honestly. I was kind of getting on myself, but then I saw it was wide open at the very end. I was like, ‘It’s going in, we’re going to go to overtime.’ And I just knew we could do it.”
While the No. 19 Cyclones brought the ungodly winds up to Broomfield with them, it was Vail who proved herself quite the unstoppable tornado in the second half. The senior leader herself willed the Tigers to victory after a shaky first half that saw the Cyclones outplay them on ground balls, draw controls and clean passes.
“We were off a little bit,” Vail explained. “I can’t even put my finger on what it was, but the dynamic was a little bit off. We just really needed to be able to turn it around. Halftime really got us going.”
Pueblo West led 9-4 at the midway break. Then Vail re-entered the chat.
She came out of the gate to throw down two quick scores in the opening two minutes of the third quarter, then teamed up with freshman attacker Emma Brusate and junior attacker Kendall Jones — who ended the contest with three and five goals, respectively — to punish Pueblo West in the crease.
The Tigers kept the drama alive through the entire fourth quarter, but mustered up just enough energy to force OT and give themselves one last chance. Now, they’ll make the treacherous drive up to Edwards to take on No. 3 Battle Mountain on Thursday.
“I wasn’t sure if we were going to get (the overtime free shot),” Vail said. “The time was so short, but then I was able to sneak in there, I was really happy. I could feel it was going to go in. I didn’t want to play another overtime.”
