ELKINS — Beating the Fairmont Senior girls’ lacrosse team is a tough task for an opponent, doing so without your best player is even tougher.
That was the case during Saturday’s WVSLA girls’ division 1 championship as University High fell to the Polar Bears 15-6 at Davis & Elkins College.
“They’re a powerhouse of a team,” UHS coach Kevin Armstrong said of FS. “Great coaching, solid players, fundamentally strong and three superstars.”
University (15-4) was whistled for four yellow cards in the first half, forcing them to compete a player down for the rest of the contest. Two of those penalties were called on all-American Rebecca Chmiel, disqualifying her midway through the first half.
“We played the whole game without our best player on the field,” Armstrong said. “That one was going to be tough to come back from. I didn’t want to count us out, but without Rebecca on the field, we lose a lot.”
Fairmont Senior (20-0) scored the first four goals in the game, but the Hawks fought back with two quick scores to make it a 4-2 game with 16 minutes left in the opening half of play.
“We knew there was going to be a run, either us or them,” Armstrong said. “Whether we had it or they had it, we knew the other one was going to counter so I’m really happy in the way we countered.”
Following UHS’s second score, however, was when Chmiel picked up her second penalty and the Polar Bears went on to record the final six goals before halftime for a 10-2 advantage.
University struck first after the break on a goal by Olivia Stewart, but Fairmont scored four in a row for a 14-3 lead.
University scored three of the final four goals in the game for the 15-6 final reading.
Emily Decker scored five times for FS while Georgia Gonzales scored four and Aubrey Harrison, named game MVP, tallied three. Abby Frederick, Ainsley Lilly and Brooklyn Brandau also scored for the winners. Liz Amos made six saves in net.
Scoring for UHS was Kelsie Kyle, Chmiel, Stewart, Zoe Mackey, Adrienne Reger and Carly Greathouse.
The win was Fairmont’s 10th state championship and fourth in a row. It was the Hawks’ first championship appearance since 2018 with what Armstrong thinks could be the best team in school history.
“From a team standpoint, we’d have a couple of girls that would lead the team in the past but for this squad, we had four,” he said. “They really gelled and came together as a team. That’s what I’m most proud of. They rallied as a team and it’s the reason we got to this game.”
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