High school girls lacrosse: Resilient Olympus overcomes red card to beat Park City in showdown of 5A’s best

In a span of 12 minutes in the second half on Wednesday, top-ranked Olympus went from up five goals on No. 2 Park City to suddenly down both a goal and a player, and realistically on the brink of a noteworthy collapse in the showdown between 5A’s two best teams.

The Titans’ response to their first adversity of the season, however, is why they’re still undefeated.

After a stunning scoring drought of 15 minutes, Olympus responded with four straight goals over a three-minute span to surge back in front and ultimately held on for the thrilling 14-13 victory after Park City scored twice in the final 30 seconds.

“This game I’ve been looking forward to all season,” said Olympus’ Eva Thorn about the rematch of last year’s 5A state championship.

“I love having that nail-biting, every possession matters, fighting for every single draw. I think when it’s in those moments of high pressure, that’s when we perform the best.”

Thorn led Olympus with six goals, but it was her last one that rescued her team mentally.

Olympus’ top draw taker, Sarah Anne, was shown a second yellow card with 16 minutes left in the game, and over the next seven minutes Park City capitalized on the extra player with four straight goals — three by Sophie Neff —  to take a 11-10 lead.

During the stretch, the Titans seemed to play in shock about their current predicament after dominating the match prior to the ejection.

It was Thorn who gave Olympus the shot of a adrenaline that it could still win despite the disadvantage, as she tied the game 11-11 on a goal with 6:41 remaining in the game.

“I think it hyped them up honestly, and I feel like it broke that tension that they needed, cause to not score like that for 15 minutes these girls are not used to that. It was almost like a flood after that. It was so much easier to move the ball and to rip a few more after that,” said Olympus coach Zana Spratling.

Added Thorn: “Once we got that one goal, it was like ‘OK, we’ve got this, we can do this.’ We had that in our minds.”

At the 5:36 mark Park City was shown a yellow card, and during the two minutes of even-strength lacrosse, Olympus scored three times, including two from Hannah Nelson, to race ahead 14-11.

Between those three even-strength goals and all the goals prior to the red card, Olympus outscored Park City 13-7 when playing with even numbers.

The Miners scored twice in the final 30 seconds, but ran out of time at another rally with the last goal coming with just three seconds left.

For Olympus, the biggest key to it building a 7-4 halftime lead and then stretching it to 10-5 at the 21:16 mark of the second half was the draw control, led by Anne.

“I think in the first half they maybe had one or two possessions of the draw. That’s what won it all the way,” said Spratling.

With Anne on the sideline with the red card though, Olympus had a dip in the draw controls, but during that critical stretch when it regained the lead Nelson was outstanding winning possession and then finishing things off with a couple goals.

Olympus still has three more games in the regular season, but it fully expects to see Park City again in the playoffs, which would likely be in a state championship rematch.