Colorado Springs, CO - UCSB came back to tie Santa Clara 10-10 with 3 seconds remaining in regulation to get the game to overtime but the Broncos prevailed in the extra period. The consolation match-up took place at the WCLA National Championship Tournament prior to the championship game. UC Davis, who beat UCSB 10-9 in overtime in the quarterfinals, took the championship with an 11-9 Win over two-time defending champion Colorado State.

Santa Clara got the game winner against the Gauchos on a dribbler ground ball that deflected off the stick of an unknown player. After the UCSB defense got the Bronco ball onto the ground on a block of a pass in front of the net just about every stick in there was after it. Sophomore Sofia Robinson (Tiburon, CA) got credit for the goal for Santa Clara that came from the jumble that resulted from everyone scrambling for the loose ball. The Broncos later got an open net goal to make it a 12-10 overtime finale.

The Gauchos trailed 9-8 at halftime but at one point led 11-10 when UCSB junior Katie Mitchell (Lafayette, CA) scored on a free position shot 10 minutes and 28 seconds into the second half after being fouled hard for the fourth time by the Santa Clara defense. Mitchell, an All-Tournament Team selection, later got hammered a fifth time by the Broncos in the midfield but it was the sixth time, when a Santa Clara player leveled her as she was receiving a pass in front of the goal, that the midfielder sustained a concussion that forced her to leave the game. The Gauchos were without her for the last moments of regulation and all of the overtime.

In the final ten minutes of the second half Santa Clara scored two straight to lead by one with 18 seconds remaining and it seemed the the game was going to go into the books 10-9 in favor of the Broncos. Senior Megan Fisher (Woodside, CA) snagged the draw out of the air and found senior Megan Dawe (Martinez, Ca) who went at the goal with it before being fouled hard by Santa Clara. Dawe buried her 8 meter shot with 3 seconds remaining in the game to get it to overtime.

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Colorado Springs, CO - UCSB won a consolation placement game 13-10 over 7th ranked University of Central Florida at the WCLA National Championship Tournament in Colorado Springs and everyone played in the game. The Gauchos went deep into their bench in the first half with 17 players seeing action enroute to a 6-3 halftime lead. The second half was all UCSB with starters in for the first 15 minutes of that half and the Gauchos leading 10-5 with just under 15 minutes to go. It was clear UCSB was in control of the game and comfortable with subbing everyone. All twenty players suited up saw significant action over different stretches of the game.

"I wanted to get everyone into this game and fortunately we played well enough to be able to do it," said UCSB head coach Paul Ramsey.

Reserve goal keeper Megan Hughes (Santa Ana, CA) entered the game with UCSB leading 10-5 with 14:52 remaining and had 5 saves. One by one every UCSB reserve entered the game and the Gauchos maintained momentum, taking a 13-5 lead with 4 minutes remaining. The reserves on the field for UCSB included three players raised from the UCSB 'B' Team for the chance to experience the National Tournament. Eight starters were on the sideline for UCSB for the last 10 minutes of the game. The Knights eventually mounted a run with their firsts still on the field to get it to the final 13-10 score.

"That's experience and not ability," said Ramsey after the game, "just in case anyone is wondering."

"We have a lot of talent in our younger players who are just not used to playing at a national level yet."

When UCSB mixed in four reserves at a time the Gauchos outplayed the Knights 3-0 over about 10 minutes. It was only with 8 younger players on the field not yet used to being out there at the same time that the Central Florida starters were able to take advantage of the  youth on the field.

The convincing win for UCSB over a Central Florida team that 3rd seeded Michigan beat 13-9 in a quarterfinal on the same side of the bracket as the Gauchos confirmed the general suspicion of everyone at the event. That suspicion being the seeds at the national championship tournament rarely reflect the abilities of the team in the tournament. Michigan had an easier path to the semifinals facing 7th ranked Central Florida despite being seeded 3rd while the Gauchos, seeded 2nd, drew 5th ranked UC Davis in the quarterfinals. The Aggies beat Michigan today 10-9 in overtime to advance to the Saturday championship game with top seeded Colorado State.

UCSB improved to 16-3 while the Knights dropped to 17-4. Consolation play concludes Saturday with UCSB scheduled to play Santa Clara University in the 5th place game at 9:00am at the El Pomar Sports Complex. UC Davis plays Colorado State at 10:30am in the championship game. Both game times are moved up because of some truly foul weather headed into Colorado Springs.

Colorado Springs, CO - UC Davis upset UCSB 10-9 in overtime today in a national quarterfinal game at the WCLA National Championship Tournament. Jessica Dresser scored 4 goals for the Aggies, including the game winner in overtime, and 5th ranked UC Davis advanced to the national semifinals with a 10-9 win. The 2nd ranked Gauchos were led by senior goalie Jeni Centner who had 14 saves. The result was the opposite of the two previous meetings this year between the two teams. Both those games UCSB came back from behind to win, once in double overtime and another time in regulation. All three games this year were decided by one goal. Shots were pretty even in this game with UCSB holding a narrow 26-25 advantage.

The game started with just about everything going the way of UCSB and the Gauchos took a 5-0 lead 13 minutes into the contest. During that span the Aggies were unable to solve the UCSB defense. At 19:05 UC Davis finally broke through and scored on an unassisted goal by junior attacker Louise Marquino (Wilmington, NC). The goal gave the Aggies life and they started clawing their way back into it with hustle to loose balls and inspired defense. UC Davis reeled off 4 more goals that weren't answered by UCSB until the close of the second half when freshman Lindsay Alex (Tustin, CA) scored unassisted with 9 seconds and UCSB led 6-5 at halftime.

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Colorado Springs, CO - UCSB advanced deeper into the post-season with a 20-12 win over University of Minnesota in the opening game of the WCLA National Championship Tournament for both teams. The 2nd ranked Gauchos will face 5th ranked UC Davis in a national quarterfinal game at 10:00am Mountain Time on Thursday at the El Pomar Sports Complex in Colorado Springs. The 10th seeded Aggies beat the 8th ranked and 7th seeded University of Texas 14-9 in their opener. UC Davis may have been somewhat under-valued by the WCLA seedings committee and showed it in their opening game performance.

Seven Gauchos were in on the scoring. UCSB junior Katie Mitchell (Lafayette, CA) led all scorers with 7 goals and 2 assists. Senior midfielder Jordan Venetis (Thousand Oaks, CA) contributed 4 goals and 3 assists. Senior Megan Fisher (Woodside, CA) had a big day in the midfield with 4 ground balls, 1 draw control and 2 caused turnovers. Senior Jeni Centner (Tustin, CA) had 12 saves.

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Baltimore, MD - UCSB has been seeded second in the sixteen team WCLA National Championship Tournament hosted by U.S. Lacrosse, the National Governing Body for the sport. The event is May 9th - 12th in Colorado Springs at the El Pomar Sports Complex.

The second ranked Gauchos were winners of the WWLL Automatic Qualifier spot with their 10-4 win over Chapman in the WWLL Championship game this past Saturday. UCSB faces 15th seeded Minnesota in a first round game on Wednesday, May 9th. The tournament selection committee saw fit to pick four additional WWLL teams for at-large spots in the national championship hunt. It is the second year in a row five WWLL teams have made the tournament, solidfying the conference as the strongest top to bottom collection of teams in the WCLA. It also makes it likely WWLL teams will face each other in one round or another as they navigate their way through the event. 

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Santa Barbara, CA - UCSB won their third WWLL Division One Championship in five years with a 10-4 victory over Chapman University. Earlier in the day the UCSB B Team won the WWLL B Division Championship with a 12-5 win over Cal Poly SLO B. That success there reversed two losses to the Mustangs during the regular season.

The score was 4-2 in favor of the Gauchos in the first half of the Division One Championship and UCSB steadily pulled away from the Panthers after halftime, winning the second half 6-2. The UCSB defensive effort stymied the Chapman offense time and time again while the offense was too efficient for Chapman to get many quality chances. UCSB outshot the Panthers 25-21. Chapman had put up big numbers in their semifinal win over UCLA, taking that one 18-9 on Saturday. UCSB scored on 10 of 21 shots on frame and won back the other 4 shots that went wide, 2 of them, or hit a pipe, another 2 of them. UCSB had the ball for most of the game and made the most of it. 

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Santa Barbara, CA - The Gauchos came back from a two goal deficit early in the second half to win a semifinal match-up with the club from UC Davis in the WWLL Championship Tournament. The win advances UCSB to the Sunday final with Chapman University.

The Aggies used a 4 goal run to take an 8-6 lead 3 minutes into the second half but UCSB held them to only 3 more goals over the final 27 minutes of play. That put the Gauchos outscoring UC Davis 6-3 over that time frame to get the win. Senior goalie Jeni Centner (Tustin, CA) had 8 of her 11 saves in the second half.

UCSB improved to 13-2 overall and will play Chapman at 1:00pm on Sunday in the WWLL Championship Game in UCSB Harder Stadium. The 3rd seeded Panthers upset 2nd seeded UCLA 18-9 in the other semifinal. The appearance in the championship game is the fourth in five years for UCSB. The Gauchos won it in 2008 & 2009, were runners-up in 2010 and won the 3rd place game in 2011 after a 13-12 semifinal loss to Santa Clara that season. 

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