COLORADO SPRINGS -The horse watching the soccer match finally went silent, standing in the equestrian stable adjacent to Fountain Valley School Field's north end.
It seemed to be cheering against the visitors in the first half of the May 13 Class 3A girls' soccer state tournament's first-round match between 23-seed Bayfield and #10 Lafayette Peak to Peak.
Whinnying and neighing during numerous Peak to Peak rushes towards BHS junior goalie Kailee Millard late in the first half, the unusually interested animal said no more after Bayfield senior Maddy Duran bull's-eyed the ball over keeper Kinzie Short's left shoulder with a 21-yard free kick in the 54th.
That left the Peak to Peak Pumas with a shaky 2-1 lead. Their 2-0 lead in the half was nearly halved by Wolverine sophomore Sophie Turner's near-miss in the 40th minute.
"I told Maddy.'This is your shot!' because she practices every day before practice, on her own-that's what she does," BHS Head Coach Jen Zelinski said. "So as long as I can get her calm and not trying to hit it as hard as she can, then she can place it where she wants to place it! And once we scored that goal, they kind of realized, 'Hey, we can score on these guys!' They're not invincible, you know?"
Sensing exactly that, sophomore Savannah Kaufmann then took a pass from classmate Misty Helton and beat alternate backstop Rachel Willette on a breakaway in the 60th, pulling the visitors up to 3-2. Peak to Peak's Alayna Mann somehow put enough pace on a 48th-minute shot to slip through Millard's hands and over the line.
"The first half was hard, but we knew that whatever Coach would say would get us pumped up," Kaufmann said. "She's always got positive ways of getting us back up. She said we were playing hard, but 'Let's do some more! Let's play harder, get the tie!' And that's exactly what I thought; I wanted a goal, I wanted Maddy to score.. And when we got two up-that's what she'd asked for-she asked for more but we just couldn't apply it."
Zelinski was proud of her Wolverines' performance.
"We were peaking at the right time, you know?" she said. "It's tough to play a team like Peak to Peak who plays year-round, been playing their whole lives.go to schools like this. But my girls showed up! They were a little intimidated, but they came out hard; they wanted to play!"
A fantastic job needed a fantastic finish, and freshman Ashley Buck provided it with two goals to cap a 5-2 defeat of Bayfield. The Wolverines finished the season a solid 13-3-2 overall.
"Lots of teams are alike in a lot of ways, and this team was aggressive, played hard like Telluride and Pagosa," Kaufmann said. "I mean, it's always hard coming out.against different teams we've never seen before, but they're a good team and we played the best we could."
"It was so close; we had chances, and that was the part where we were, like, at the 'peak' and could have tied the game," she added. "But I know our team gave it all, the best we could-and that's all we can do, really!"
Zelinski added: "To be honest, they're good, they're bigger, they're faster, they're stronger, and I think we held our own; We showed them that.public schools, we can compete. And we'll be back!"
Seeing 28 (unofficially) Peak to Peak shots come her way, 19 of them put on net, Millard totaled 14 saves for Bayfield. The Wolverines managed just eight shots (four on goal) and was out-cornered, six to one.
"Of course, it sucks to lose and it sucks to see those seniors go, but I'm so proud of how they played," Zelinski said. "Every year I get closer and closer to them you know? I'm so proud of the kids they've become, and how far they've come to be able to compete with kids like this who.can play all the time. I'm so proud."
Via a 7-0 plastering of the 7-seed, hosting Danes (11-3-0) the next afternoon, Peak to Peak further improved to 11-5-1 overall and advances to the quarterfinals to face #2 Colorado Academy (12-3-0) at Slater Field in Denver on Thursday, May 19.
