Wins have been tough to come by for the Shakopee girls lacrosse team.
The Sabers dropped their final five South Suburban Conference games, including an 8-5 home loss to Farmington May 23. Shakopee finished 1-6 in the league standings.
The Section 2 playoffs start May 30 with the title game set for June 7. The Sabers (3-9 overall) will need to win four straight games to claim the title.
Shakopee’s three wins this spring were all in a row, over Hopkins, Apple Valley-Burnsville and Hutchinson, and those came after the Sabers opened the season with four straight losses.
Fourth-ranked Chanhassen (8-3) will be the No. 1 seed in Section 2, while No. 8 Eden Prairie (7-4), Minnetonka (10-3) and Southwest Christian (12-1) look to be next three seeds.
Other teams in the field include Hutchinson (9-4), Orono (6-5), Chaska (5-7), Delano/Rockford (5-6), Mound Westonka (3-9), Holy Family (2-10) and Waconia (0-11) are also in the field.
In the loss to Farmington, junior Olivia Hayer had two goals for Shakopee, while sophomore Rachel Schwabe had goal and two assists. Sophomore Gia Lynch and junior Nadia Rylance also had goals.
Sophomore Alli Parker got the start in goal. She was also in net in the Sabers’ 20-4 loss at No. 1 and unbeaten Lakeville South May 18 and a 9-7 setback at home to Lakeville North May 16 in a pair of league games.
Schwabe had three goals in the loss to Lakeville North, while Lynch scored twice. Hayer and Rylance also scored, while ninth grader Brielle Olsonoski had an assist.
The Sabers have had just two winning seasons since the inception of the program back in 2014. There was hope the Sabers could make more of an impact in the SSC this spring, but the conference is always strong and it’s tough to move up.
In fact, an SSC team has won the last four state titles. Apple Valley, now a co-op program with Burnsville, won in 2018, followed by back-to-back crowns from Prior Lake in 2019 and 2021 and a title from Lakeville South last year.
There was no 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
This year’s state tournament will be June 13, 15 and 17 at two sites, Stillwater and White Bear Lake High Schools.
