The Becker Bulldog girls lacrosse team played a “play-in” round match Tuesday at SCSU Husky Stadium. 

 

Their season came to an end in dramatic fashion.

 

Bryn Hoffman scored the game-winning goal with just three seconds remaining in regulation to lift No. 8-seed St. Cloud (4-8) past No. 9-seed Becker (4-10) in the Section 8 playoffs.

 

“I wish we had hung on,” said Head Coach hugh Hovde. “But I’m proud of how our girls played and gave everything they could. It just wasn’t meant to be.”

 

Becker had taken the lead, 8-6 with just over two-and-a-half minutes left when St. Cloud’s coach called a timeout to discuss strategy. Whatever Kelsey Steinbach told her team in those few moments, made all the difference in their and Becker’s chances of extending their season by one more game.

 

Alyssa Fenstad came out of the two-minute timeout and notched two goals to tie the match in the final three minutes for St. Cloud. That’s when a penalty was called in the Becker zone with mere seconds to go to give Hoffman a free possession, one-on-one with goalie Kelsi Halvorson.

 

Halvorson — like most goalies in that type of situation — had little chance to stop a rocket from that close in.

 

Junior Brookelyn Beutz tallied four goals for Becker in the loss. Daisy Kent added two and Olivia Hultgren and Alli Zimmer each had one.

 

Becker had begun the regular season with five straight losses before they finally got in the win column with a victory over Sartell/Sauk Rapids in early May. From there, they played more competitively and notched three more wins in the final seven matches.

 

“Yeah, the girls started pulling things together in the second half of the season,” said Hovde. “They never got down and all I heard was lots of compliments on how this team held themselves in games.”

 

At this week’s awards banquet, Halvorson was named all-conference and she, Kent, Beutz and Sarah Garding were named captains for next year’s team.