UCSB Snares 15-5 Upset Over Colorado State
CSU won the Rocky Mountain Conference to get the automatic bid into the WCLA Tournament. To get that AQ they upset Brigham Young 16-14 in their conference semifinal and then won 17-13 over Westminster in the final. Westminster had upset the club from the University of Colorado 17-10 in their semifinal. The Gauchos received an at-large spot in the WCLA Tournament largely by winning six of their last seven games before WCLA selections. UCSB was 5-5 midway through the season but rallied and now the Gauchos are winners of seven of their last eight games. UCSB scored first when junior Lindsay Alex (Tustin, CA) assisted senior Blair Evans (Salinas, CA) about six minutes into the game. The Rams tied it 1-1 a few minutes later but then the Gauchos went on a seven goal run over the next 18 minutes that put them up 8-1 with a few minutes left in the half. CSU converted on two extra player offense goals while the Gauchos were down one defender out for a yellow card. That put halftime 8-3 in favor of UCSB. The Rams scored the first goal of the second half to pull within 8-4 but that was as close as they could get. From that point the Gauchos outscored CSU 7-1, including holding them scoreless over the final 18 minutes of the game, while continuing to attack. Evans led all goal scorers with 5 goals and 1 assist while Alex had 6 assists. Sophomore Amanda Shoemaker (Poway, CA) had 4 goals and 1 assist, senior Katie Hubbert (San Jose, CA) had 3 goals and 1 assist and senior Samm Wilson (San Jose, CA) scored 3 goals. Senior goalie Megan Hughes (Santa Ana, CA) had 11 saves while allowing only 5 goals for 68.8%. The defenders in front of Hughes continuously frustrated the CSU offense with a solid on-ball positioning defense that rarely checked and instead focused on taking away inside moves by the Rams and kept them mostly out of the scoring area. Sophomore defender Cailan Howey (Charlotte, NC) had 3 ground balls, 3 caused turnovers and 3 draw controls to lead the defense statistically while junior Alexandra Bowers (San Jose, CA) had 5 ground balls and 1 caused turnover but the entire unit played a fine team defense game to hold the Rams to their lowest scoring output of the season. The Gauchos improved to 12-6 overall while the Rams dropped to 9-8. UCSB plays Boston College at 1:00pm on Thursday for a chance to advance to the national semifinals. The Eagles are 9-2 overall and winners of their last six games. The two teams have no common opponents this season and have not played since May 7, 2008 when UCSB prevailed 12-8 in a first round post-season game. Two other WWLL teams also advanced to the national quarterfinals, the most of any WCLA conference. Fifth seeded UCLA took care of the club from Virginia Tech 15-10 and sixth seeded Santa Clara edged out the club from University of Colorado 12-11.
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Virginia Beach, VA - UCSB upset seventh seeded Colorado State in the first round of the Copyright 2024 - UCSB Womens Lacrosse | Website by LaxTeams.net