Senior midfielder/attacker Gunnar Fellows led Valor Christian to a big boys lacrosse win on April 15.
Fellows scored five goals, including two in a decisive fourth quarter spurt to help Valor secure a 14-13 win over Mountain Vista in a game played at Valor Christian.
It was a matchup of the two best boys lacrosse teams in the state, at least according to the CHSAANow.com poll.
Valor came into the game ranked second behind top-ranked Vista. After the victory, the Eagles are 8-1 and 2-0 in league play. The Golden Eagles are 9-1 and 3-1 in the conference.
“Gunnar Fellows is our solo captain,” said Valor Head Coach Josh Hoffman. “He’s committed to West Point so he will be at Army next year. He’s a great leader. He does a good job of leading our offense and keeping our morale high.”
Fellows scored the first goal of the game and, more importantly, came through along with Connor Garrison in the fourth quarter to provide Valor with the winning margin.
Mountain Vista led 12-11 when Fellows scored with seven minutes remaining in the game. Garrison, who is committed to play at Sacred Heart, followed with a goal and then Fellows scored again to give Valor a 14-12 lead about 3:30 to play.
Valor kept possession for two minutes until Mountain Vista narrowed the gap to one goal with 31 seconds showing on the clock.
“It was really important that we kept possession at the end of the game to keep the pressure off the defense,” said Fellows, who leads the team with 38 goals and 43 points. “It was really a great job for our defense giving us the ball on offense, trusting us and giving us opportunities. It was really good that we controlled the tempo of the game. It was a big win for sure. We enjoyed the win for one night but its on to the next game. It’s a long season and once we start playoffs we’ll probably see them (Vista) again.”
Besides Fellows, Garrison, Liam Goodwin and Alex Rismani each had two goals. Baden Brown had a goal and three assists.
“We try to focus on always winning the ground ball battles,” said Hoffman. “If you win the ground ball battles you have possession. Mountain Vista is a good team, a scrappy team and I’m sure we will see them again.”
Sophomore Brown and freshman Harry Luong each picked up five ground balls for Valor.
“We been trying to focus on ourselves to make sure we’re doing the little things right,” added Hoffman.“Our coaching staff keeps emphasizing to get better.”
Junior Ethan Pearson had four goals for Vista and senior Dillon Pless had three.