With 1:40 left in the game, the Coppell girls lacrosse team calls a timeout. It is one of the most important games this season, and the team is behind by five points. Perhaps hoping for a comeback, the Cowgirls energize, pump up their lacrosse sticks and run out onto the field, but Coppell could not close the gap.

On Tuesday night, Coppell was defeated by Highland Park, 15-10, at Coppell Middle School North.

“This game determined whether or not we would get to go to playoffs, whether it was a win or loss,” Coppell coach Logan Hendrick said. “So the loss means that we don’t, obviously unfortunate. But the thing we tasked the team with doing going into it was to not stand by just watch the game, but to take control of the outcome. And we did that at times, but we just didn’t do it for 50 minutes.”

Though the two teams were more evenly matched for a portion of the first half, a string of consecutive goals from Highland Park towards the end of the first half solidified its lead, ending the half with a score of 10-4.

“Highland Park is highly skilled,” Hendrick said. “They have been playing together since they were in third or fourth grade. They have a lot of chemistry and they love it. So it was a hard team. We had good matchups on our end, but they had something shake their way. That definitely helped them and they worked hard.”

The second half of the game was more back and forth, with three of Coppell’s six goals coming from junior defender Jewel Bryant.

Though an upsetting loss, Hendrick thinks that the team executed its game plan well.

“We scouted the other team, we focused more on the personnel than we did their plays or anything like that,” Hendrick said. “So our plan was basically aligned to who they had as players and aligning our team with who was best suited to either defend or take offensively one of their players. They did well executing that game plan. It just wasn’t quite enough.”

Coppell junior midfielder Kate Nelson thinks that the team had its strengths, especially during the second half.

“I definitely feel like we had great fast breaks and, once we had momentum, we definitely kept it,” Nelson said. “It was just hard to get it back again. And I count that as a win in our minds that we continue to keep momentum.”

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