LAKEWOOD — Jon Cohen wasn’t at liberty to say exactly what he told his Evergreen Cougars during an early timeout in their March 21 game with Green Mountain, and rightfully so.

There wasn’t a whole lot of nice things to be said after the Cougars’ boys lacrosse team surrendered three goals in the game’s first eight minutes at Trailblazer Stadium. But whatever was said it worked.

“The guys just looked excited and not excited in a good way. We circled this game when the schedule came out as the day before spring break. Sometimes their minds go elsewhere and they’re thinking about something out and that’s what happened,” the Evergreen head coach said.

And while it took some time to right the ship, Evergreen eventually got it straightened out, scoring seven of the game’s next nine goals to topple Green Mountain 7-5. The Cougars enter spring break with an unblemished 6-0 record, their best start in school history.

Yet, it wasn’t easy.

Green Mountain (4-2), coming off a one-sided 17-0 thumping by Columbine, received goals from Nick Dwyer, Adam Legaretta and Ethan Anderson to lead 3-0 just 8 minutes, 4 seconds in. It’s the most goals Evergreen has surrendered in the first quarter all season.

“They got a new coach. I even told him after the game he’s done a heck of a job with those kids,” Cohen said of Green Mountain counterpart Nate Hallahan. “It’s the same kids they had last year. They’ve done a really good job. You’ve got to give it to Green Mountain. They came out and punched us right in the mouth. It’s not like we were so much better. They came out and played hard.”

Over the course of the next 22 minutes, spanning the first through third quarters, the Cougars’ defense stymied Green Mountain as Evergreen scored four consecutive goals to take the lead.

“We just kind of changed our defense, took a deep breath,” Cougars junior defender Erik Nestingen said. “We kind of thought about what we’re doing more, slides and stuff. We just basically worked harder than we were in the first eight minutes.”
Reilly Fletcher scored two of his three goals during the run, while Scott Crews and Zach Strande also put the ball past Rams goalkeeper Hayden Pike as Evergreen went ahead 4-3.

Green Mountain tied the game six minutes later on Legaretta’s second goal. But EHS scored the first two goals of the fourth behind Crews and Jakob Koons to take the lead for good.

“We were getting good looks and shots (in the first half), but we just weren’t putting them on net,” Fletcher said. “So in the second half we were making them a little harder for the goalie to get. I think that made the difference.”

Dwyer pulled Green Mountain within 6-5 with 4:34 remaining in regulation, but Fletcher capped his hat trick almost two minutes later to seal the victory.
“Obviously, this is the best start in the history of the progam. But if we play like we did today we’re going to lose a lot of games,” Cohen said. “The kids are absolutely 100 percent thrilled with how they started. We’ve had success against this team and they looked lackadasical. We’ve got a lot of stuff to fix for the stretch run.”