FORT COLLINS — Mess with a sleeping snake long enough and it’s bound to strike eventually.
Fort Collins’ Vipers spotted the Douglas County boys lacrosse team a 2-0 lead after one quarter Tuesday at J. Ray French Field and responded with six consecutive goals en route to a 9-3 victory in the second round of the state tournament.
The Vipers (9-6), 2007 champions, advanced to the quarterfinals for the eighth consecutive season and play Mullen (12-2) on Saturday at Regis.
“We showed up today in a different gear, and I don’t know what finally got through to them,” Fort Collins coach Carey Smith said. “It’s time to start playing hard and playing smart . . . at least a little smarter, anyway.”
The Vipers were familiar with the Huskies, having defeated them 9-7 just 10 days ago. But the confidence gained from that victory didn’t carry over, and Smith blamed himself.
“It worked so well the last time that we put together a lineup that went down 2-0 in the first quarter, and I out-thought myself so much that we went down 2-0,” Smith said. “So then we went back to what we were doing, and things seemed OK.”
The start of the second quarter triggered the Vipers’ offense. Just 40 seconds in, Teran Mawhinney scored against Huskies goalie Devin Fischer. Andrew Kurth and Alex Creech completed the scoring for Fort Collins in the second quarter, giving the Vipers a lead they wouldn’t relinquish.
“He stopped a lot of shots, especially from one of our best shooters, Devin Arruabarrena,” Creech, who scored three goals, said of Fischer. “Then we just started cranking at him and they found a way in.”
The Fort Collins defense, led by Brian Leistikow and Bret Newman, allowed Douglas County (10-6) six shots on goal in the first quarter but just four the rest of the game.
“They overplayed us, and we didn’t get as open as we needed to be at times, but they did a great job and they have a great defense,” Douglas County coach Kevin Folven said. “Their defense kind of suffocated us, and we just had a hard time clearing the ball.”
Fort Collins got two goals from Arruabarrena and two from Kurth.
Douglas County 2 0 0 1 — 3
Fort Collins 0 3 2 4 — 9
First quarter — DC: McGraw (Howard), 7:30; Hardardt (Ben Dieker), 13:09.
Second quarter — FC: Mawhinney (unassisted) :40; Kurth (unassisted), 8:34; Creech (D. Arruabarrena), 9:11.
Third quarter — FC: D. Arruabarrena (Page), 7:17; Creech (Caddoo), 7:53.
Fourth quarter — FC: Kurth (unassisted), 6:39; DC: Howard (Rykowski), 7:48; FC: Caddoo (unassisted), 11:15; Creech (unassisted) 12:14; Mawhinney (unassisted), 12:43.
Shots on goal — Douglas County 6-0-2-2 — 10, Fort Collins 2-7-5-10 — 24.
Saves — Douglas County (Fischer) 2-4-3-6 — 15, Fort Collins (Nye) 4-0-2-1 — 7.
Jon E. Yunt: 303-954-1354 or jyunt@denverpost.com
