Telluride, Colo. - The Telluride Lacrosse team has turned it all around. They put the brakes on last year’s 0-7 slide of a season and put together a strong winning season for the first time in … well … nobody is sure how long.
Nearly taking first in a tournament in the Vail Valley this past weekend and instead settling for a close second ensured them a winning record.
They’re 5-2 heading into their final game this Saturday at 2 p.m. in Lawson Hill. They’ll play Montrose, who they’ve already beaten twice.
“We’re pretty excited about being ensured a winning season,” said Michael Hein, the coach of the club lacrosse team. “This year we ran with everybody, and we were hitting and we were breaking bones. We were a completely different team this year than last year.”
The clearest evidence of that came this past weekend. The lacrosse squad was narrowly edged out of the tournament championship by Grand Valley, but they beat Durango, Basalt and Loveland by the scores of 5-3, 5-1, and 6-5, respectively.
It was against Durango, which has had a strong lacrosse team in recent years, that Hein realized his players had become a better, different team than it had been.
“There was just a moment when things slowed down and they were able to see the whole field instead of the guys in front of them,” Hein said. “I think at that point we just realized that we could beat anybody if we played well enough.”
During the tournament, goals came from Jeffrey Erickson, Shawn Swain and freshman Tucker Hensen.
And David Conrad, a senior. He had been determined all year to score a goal, despite being a defenseman.
Against Loveland, he made it happen. He took the ball and ran 80 yards down the field, took his first shot of the season, and scored.
“We were just on a mission at that point to annihilate everybody in our path,” Hein said.
For kids who live in a remote alpine valley nearly two miles high, the lacrosse season is compact, slammed together over the course of a month or so.
That puts them at a disadvantage against teams from bigger valleys at lower altitudes, which not only have huge rosters but were practicing well before the snow melted in Telluride.
Hein hopes his team will close out with a win versus Montrose. But he knows that the kids from down the road will come ready to play.
“It’s still a Montrose team, so there’s gonna be big players,” Hein said. “They’re gonna be pissed, and they’re gonna be better than they were last time. I know they’re gonna be looking for a win.”
