By Justin Adams | [email protected]

The Mountain Ridge girls lacrosse team was on a mission this season. After a disappointing loss as a 2-seed in the second round of last year’s playoffs, the Sentinels came into this year like they had something to prove.

Once again, Mountain Ridge was a dominant force during the regular season. In 12 of the team’s 18 wins during the season, the Sentinels had a margin of victory of at least 10 goals. And many of them were more lopsided than that. In one three-game stretch in the middle of the season, they outscored their opponents by a combined score of 69-3.

The only blemishes on the Sentinels’ season was a 12-9 loss to Skyridge and a loss to 5A powerhouse Park City.

The Skyridge loss was early in the season, when many of the team’s younger players were still learning the team’s unique system. For the rest of the season, head coach Angie Brescia hoped for a chance at a rematch.

“We play a different kind of defense than most teams do, so early in the season when we had a lot of freshmen playing on defense, they were still learning it. So we weren’t prepared early in the season to face them. You can ask anyone I’ve spoken to, but I’ve been wanting a rematch with them because I knew we could do better,” she said.

That potential rematch seemed almost inevitable as both teams headed into the playoffs. Skyridge secured the No. 1 seed, with their only loss of the season coming against Park City. Mountain Ridge once again was the number two seed, just like last year.

After a very similar regular season, and even ending up with the same seeding as last year, the Sentinels may have felt like they were having deja vu. But Brescia said a big focus for the team this year was their mentality: not getting in their heads and taking things one game at a time. And that’s what they did, as they steamrolled their way to the championship game, winning three playoff games by a combined score of 51-15.

Skyridge held up its end of the deal in securing a rematch in the state championship game in equally impressive fashion, winning their playoff games by a combined score of 54-16.

And so the stage was set for two juggernauts to face off at Zions Bank Stadium (just down the road from Mountain Ridge High School). The home-field advantage was apparent for the Sentinels, who were backed by a sizable crowd of supporters.

Mountain Ridge took an early lead as they scored the first few goals. But Skyridge responded with a few goals of their own. Each time the Sentinels built a lead of a few goals and looked like maybe they could blow the game open, the Falcons answered back with a few of their own. But Mountain Ridge never gave up the lead and eventually walked away with an 11-9 victory.

“I’m happy to have faced them in the championship. They did an exceptional job, making sure we fought all the way until the end to get this win, which just makes it feel all that much bigger,” Brescia said.

As the Falcons tried to make a comeback in the final minutes of the game, Sentinel goalkeeper Bekah Bargeron had to make a number of saves. Asked who was the game’s MVP, Brescia pointed to Bargeron.

“It’s really hard because I feel like they all stepped up in their own way, but honestly I’d give it to Bekah, because I feel like Skyridge had a huge percentage of the possession and got a lot of shots off on her, but she was stopping them for us,” Brescia said.

“That means everything,” Bargeron said. “Last year was really hard. I had a really tough time with my former team, and I had to switch schools. This team was so welcoming and so nice. I’ve worked so hard, and a lot of it has been for them. It’s amazing that I could do that for them.”

“It just makes you proud,” Brescia said about the team’s state championship victory. “You can only do so much and teach so much. They have to be the ones to want it and to bring it out on the field. It’s an honor to be their coach and I’m just super proud to be here with them.”