Scotts Valley’s girls’ lacrosse team was down to a dozen players prior to last week’s Pacific Coast Athletic League Gabilan Division match against Monte Vista Christian in Watsonville.
There were barely enough bodies to field a full squad for the Falcons, but apparently that’s all it took in order to capture a dominating 16-3 victory over the Mustangs on March 19.
“It’s really good to be able to come out, and especially get a win like this where we’re down to so many players and it be [this] decisive,” said Scotts Valley senior Sofia Niklaus, who finished with a team-best seven goals. “I feel it really gives us confidence. We may have slipped up against Carmel, but we can do this. I was a little down in the dumps but this definitely reinvigorated me.”
Scotts Valley improved to a 3-1 record in Gabilan Division play, including a 13-4 victory over Monterey on March 14 and an 11-7 win against Salinas in the teams’ regular season-opener March 4. The win against MVC begins a small streak of two for the Falcons, who bounced back following a 13-7 loss to Carmel on March 11.
“I was really nervous about today, players down and Monte Vista is usually really tough competition for us,” Scotts Valley head coach Colleen Niklaus said. “I did not know what to expect. I was really surprised when we were winning. My goal for today was to have fun and keep their spirits up, and figure out a strategy to make us competitive, even though we were short on players.”
The Falcons are a senior-heavy team with co-captains Sofia Niklaus and Skylar Dufour leading the way. Colleen Niklaus along with her team leaders had a talk with the rest of the group about strategy and pulling their own weight.
“It feels really good to be able to see them work as a team and really work their tails off,” Colleen Niklaus said.
Sofia Niklaus currently has a team-best 23 goals and is tied for a team high seven assists, according to statistics on the Monterey Bay Preps website. Dufour, who had four assists and a pair of assists in last week’s win over MVC, has 10 total goals and seven assists this season.
“With spring sports, everyone has divided schedules, but the group that we do have does show up pretty consistently to practice,” Dufour said. “We’re pretty committed, so that’s good. We’ve learned how to work together.”
Seniors Dillon Fiorita, Erin Szymanski, Lili Raif, Claire Skinner and Serena Sandford-Brantley are the other key returning players for Scotts Valley, which finished with an 11-3 overall record and was runner-up in the Gabilan Division behind defending champion Stevenson in 2024.
The Falcons qualified for the Central Coast Section Division II playoffs by winning their play-in game against Monterey. They were then quickly ousted after falling to Burlingame in the quarterfinals.
Fiorita is third on the Falcons with eight goals and five assists, while Szymanski has tallied four goals this season. Skinner has three saves in three games as a goalkeeper and a pair of assists playing as a midfielder.
“Now our returning players are people who first started last year, so that’s a shift,” Sofia Niklaus said. “But, they have really come into their own. And I’m always amazed [how] we come back the next season in the spring, and they haven’t touched a stick at all, and they’re already so much better than when they first started last year.”
Newcomers Jessie Burbulys, Natalia Warner and Maisey Chard continue to mature for the Falcons as they continue to make an impact on the defensive side of the field. Transfer student Lola Ritsema will be available at the end of March.
Warner, a freshman, has four saves as the team’s goalie, while Chard tallied three saves in the loss to Carmel.
“[Warner] was able to transfer her soccer athleticism and vision of the field to lacrosse,” Dufour said. “It’s been really interesting to watch. [The new players] just pick it up so fast.”
A trip back to the CCS playoffs is not out of the picture for the Falcons. Sofia Niklaus said her goal is to have fun and hopefully grow the sport of lacrosse before she leaves to play at the collegiate level.
“There’s a lot of club lacrosse at a lot of the UCs around here and where a lot of people, at least where we are from, are gonna go to college,” Niklaus said. “So, hopefully we can get them to love the sport and then they will maybe go and play outside of Scotts Valley.”
Prior to the spring campaign, Niklaus had quite a busy offseason. She committed to play lacrosse at Colorado College—currently ranked No. 19 in the NCAA Division III—out of the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference.
On July 2, she earned both All-American and All-Academic honors by USA Lacrosse, making her the lone player in the PCAL to receive the prestigious award. Later that month, she played for the women’s Swiss National Team in Braga, Portugal at the European Championship, which is one of the four continental qualifier events for the 2026 Women’s Lacrosse World Championship in Tokyo.
Niklaus played a huge role in helping the Swiss team qualify for the championships. She finished with a team-best 18 goals to go along with three assists in eight games played, and was awarded Player of the Match four times for her outstanding play and contribution to the game.
With the exception of Niklaus, lacrosse is not the primary sport for most of her teammates who might have one or two seasons under their belts, or are brand-new players.
“I know it’s really hard because if we don’t have any subs, every single new person is just thrown into the game,” Niklaus said. “They’re doing really well, but also it’s very hard to come into a sport you’ve never played before.”
That is often the case for Colleen Niklaus, who is typically nervous about having enough players to roster a team. She said it’s a small pool of athletes in a school that houses around 700 students.
The five-year skipper is flexible by allowing players to participate in other extracurricular activities because sometimes it’s the only way she can get them to sign up for girls lacrosse.
It’s been a challenging season for Scotts Valley, yet Niklaus is still impressed with the hustle and grit this year’s squad is showing on the pitch despite the bumps along the way.
“They don’t have to be perfect, they just have to try really hard,” she said. “That’s what I love. And I love the fact that they get open for each other, they support each other and they rise to the occasion.”
Next up, Scotts Valley (3-1, 3-1) plays at Stevenson (1-1-1, 1-0) in PCAL Gabilan Division action April 1 at 4pm.
