AURORA | A furious rally couldn’t make up for missed opportunities early for the Regis Jesuit field hockey team in Monday night’s state semifinals.
Denied for 57-plus minutes by the Colorado Academy defense, the fourth-seeded Raiders scored twice in the final two-plus minutes of a cold, windy contest at Legacy Stadium, but fell to the top-seeded Mustangs 3-2.
Junior Jasmine Lugo and senior Sam Beatty tallied goals for Regis Jesuit, which lost in the semifinals for a second straight season and finished 11-7.
Colorado Academy — which improved to 18-1 on the season — advanced to Wednesday’s 7 p.m. state championship game against No. 2 Kent Denver (15-2-1), which downed No. 3 Cherry Creek 4-0 in the other semifinal.
Regis Jesuit and Colorado Academy meet previously on Sept. 23 and the Mustangs also prevailed in that one 3-2. In the postseason meeting, Colorado Academy got on the scoreboard first with a transition goal less than 10 minutes into the game when junior Coco Gerber scored from point blank range for the the first of what would be three goals in the contest on a feed from junior Daisy Hawk.
The Raiders had a string of three consecutive penalty corner chances in the second period, but could not get the equalizer against sophomore goalie Vaughn Miller and the quick-closing Colorado Academy defense. Ten such opportunities in the entire game did not result in a goal for coach Kate Zehnacker’s Regis Jesuit team.
Gerber scored her second goal in the second period on a penalty corner and the third on a deflection on a set play in the third period, which gave the Mustangs enough cushion to withstand transition goals by Lugo and Beatty in the final 2:10 of regulation.
Senior Natalie Chilton assisted on both goals for the Raiders.
Courtney Oakes is Aurora Sentinel Sports Editor. Reach him at sports@sentinelcolorado.com. Twitter/X: @aurorasports. IG: Sentinel Prep Sports
2026 STATE FIELD HOCKEY SEMIFINALS
Nov. 2 at Legacy Stadium
(1) Colorado Academy 3, (4) Regis Jesuit 2
Score by quarters:
Regis Jesuit 0 0 0 2 — 2
Colo. Academy 1 1 1 0 — 3
