Dream season comes to an end for Lady Bighorns

It wasn’t the way the season was supposed to end but what a ride it was.

The Oasis Academy Lady Bighorns surpassed expectations to finish second in the High Sierra Lacrosse League this season before falling to No. 3 Truckee on Monday in the semifinals of the playoffs at Churchill County Regional Park. The Wolverines, who split with the Bighorns during the regular season, needed a last-minute score to break the tie and win 13-12. Truckee and Galena meet on Wednesday for the HGLL title and lone berth for next week’s state championship.

Oasis finished the season with a 13-2 mark and led the league in goals scored. Even with the playoffs, Oasis is the only team to score more than 200 goals this season after finishing last year with a 10-6 record and only 184 goals scored. The Bighorns’ six losses came to Galena, Truckee and Manogue but they split with Galena and Truckee, and swept Manogue this spring.

“That is a huge success for us from last year. For being such a young team, these girls had an amazing season,” Bighorns coach Lisa Swan said. “This year, the girls worked hard on both the offense and defense to change that.”

In Monday’s season-ending loss, sophomore Brooklynn Whitaker led the team with five goals and one assist while freshman Sadie O’Flaherty had four. Eighth-grader Maiya Swan scored twice and freshman Meeka Erwin added one.

“They hustled faster and got the groundballs quicker,” coach Swan said about Truckee. “Groundballs win games.”

Truckee opened with a two-goal lead before Whitaker scored at the 11:44 mark. Truckee, though, responded quickly and increased the lead to 3-1, 43 seconds later. Oasis scored again at the 7:19 mark when O’Flaherty found the net but Truckee, again, came back quickly within 10 seconds. Swan’s goal at the 6:50 mark cut the deficit to 5-3.

After the Wolverines scored their fifth goal with 4:40 left in the half, the Bighorns came back with two when Whitaker scored at 3:41 and 1:29 to tie the game at five at halftime.

“The offense was pushing through. We didn’t have good passes or good cuts,” Swan said. “We’re a young team and we’re still working on the defense.”

Truckee opened the second half with a goal 37 seconds into the period but Oasis stormed back with Erwin, Whitaker and O’Flaherty scoring three unanswered to take its first lead of the game, 8-6, with 20:04 left.

Truckee tied the game at 16:32 but Whitaker scored again at the 15:20 mark to stay ahead by two (9-7). The Wolverines tied the game with two unanswered goals with 9:03 left in the half but O’Flaherty broke the tie again with a goal 7 seconds later to lead 10-9. Oasis added to the lead with a goal from Swan at 6:24 but Truckee scored back to back to take the lead back at 12-11.

O’Flaherty tied the game with a goal at the 3:02 mark before Truckee’s game-winner with 1 minute left.