The best season in Roaring Fork Rams varsity girls lacrosse history came to a heartbreaking halt on Monday, as they fell 10-9 in their home quarterfinal matchup against the No. 6 Cheyenne Mountain Red-Tailed Hawks 10-9. 

The Rams did not seem to play their best brand of lacrosse for all 48 minutes, but that didn’t deter them from keeping the game nail-bitingly close until the final horn. 

“I couldn’t be prouder of the group, and the way they kept fighting,” Rams head coach Dahl Miller said after the game. “Sometimes that’s just the way it goes; sometimes you’re not always clicking.”

The quarterfinal round between the No. 3 and No. 6 seeds brought the intensity expected in the high-powered matchup, though both potent offenses struggled to break through their opponents’ hard-nosed defense. 

After the first quarter, the Rams and Red-Tailed Hawks were knotted at 2-2 before Cheyenne Mountain doubled up in the second while holding the Rams to just one goal in the second quarter. Roaring Fork roared out of the break and took a 5-4 lead just two minutes into the third quarter. 

After getting punched in the mouth, the Red-Tailed Hawks took control of the game. They scored four unanswered goals in the back half of the third quarter and brought an 8- 5 lead into the final 12 minutes. 

“Ground balls killed us this game,” Miller explained. “The girls were more gritty and hustling a lot more (in the second half), but we still struggled to take care of the ball.”

The fourth quarter of the quarterfinal matchup featured a more intense emotional rollercoaster than the rest of an already nerve-racking game. The girls outscored their visitors 4-2 in the final quarter and held the ball in the attacking zone for most of the last 12 minutes.

Ultimately, the Cheyenne Mountain defense held strong and celebrated their journey to the 4A CHSAA State Championship semi-finals on the Carbondale Middle School field. 

“I couldn’t be prouder of how they kept fighting,” Miller said. “We’re down three goals with a few minutes left, and we were that close to tying it. We have a saying: ‘The ball is yellow for a reason, treat it like gold,’ and I think that was the biggest thing. When it comes down to it, we had to take care of the ball a little better.”

Miller, who is deeply ingrained in the youth lacrosse community, has been coaching this particular group for nearly a decade. His emotions poured through as he reflected on the experience. 

“My daughter’s a senior on this team, and I’ve coached these seniors for seven or eight years, so I’m a little emotional,” he said with tears in his eyes. “It’s just a great group of kids, and to see the camaraderie that they’ve built and the friends they’ve made was amazing.”

Because the Roaring Fork Rams girls lacrosse team is the only girls’ program in the Roaring Fork School District, the dynamic of friendships isn’t always further strengthened in the classroom. For some of the girls, the only time they see each other is through lacrosse-oriented events. 

“It’s really neat to see that dynamic come through when these girls really only see each other at practice,” Miller said. “When you have 28-30 kids coming in, and they’re from four different schools, it’s just super cool to see all these kids come together and work for a common cause, and we almost got to where we wanted to be.”

Although the loss was still sinking in for the first-year head coach of the Rams varsity team, Miller was able to zoom out and see the bigger picture, explaining that although it hurt not to take the win, the community was exploding. 

“When I saw the crowd on Thursday night for our second round game, I was absolutely shocked. It looked like a Friday Night Lights game for girls’ lacrosse,” he said. “To me, that’s exciting for our program, that’s exciting for the community, and it’s exciting for the rec league. 

“Over the past four years, they’ve only gotten better, and their records have gotten better,” Miller continued. “We’ve gotten better and gone a little further, and now those kids in the community can see that. Hopefully the stoke continues, that would be the ultimate dream.”