UCSB Ninth In Lacrosse Magazine Pre-Season Poll
UCSB will play six teams in the poll during the regular season along with a team that was ranked 9th at the end of last season but was either forgotten or snubbed by pollsters. The Gauchos face #1 UCLA, #5 Georgia, #8 Santa Clara, #14 Colorado, #15 Cal Poly SLO and #18 San Diego State, although not in that order. They also play BYU on January 30th. The slighted Cougars will be in Santa Barbara for a 5:00pm Friday game with UCSB. BYU should be in the Top 10 somewhere but isn't. "I'm glad we're Top 10 to start off," said UCSB head coach Paul Ramsey when he saw the poll, "but one of the two things that stuck out the most was BYU being left out." "They are a Top Ten team, for sure, and San Diego might be Top Twenty." 2015 Lacrosse Magazine Pre-Season Poll 1. UCLA Teams in bold are on the UCSB regular season schedule. Free Positions Thirteen of the twenty teams in the poll will play in the 27th Annual Santa Barbara Shootout at SBCC & UCSB February 13th - 15th. Most Top Ten play another Top Ten at least twice and sometimes three times in a brutal three day stretch of contests that often make or break a post-season appearance in the first time out the gate for the season for most of these teams. Five of the twenty teams are from the Western Women's Lacrosse League and the Mid Atlantic Women's Lacrosse League also has five teams, putting ten of the Top 20 from two conferences. This narrowly eclipses the next highest conference showing, which are four teams from the Women's Collegiate Lacrosse League of the Midwest. Eleven of the Top 20 are WCLA programs at campuses with NCAA Division I programs. UCLA is ranked number one in the land for the first time. The Bruins return just about every starter except for the notable loss of goalie Martine Ehrlich. It appears Natalia Vargas, on the UCLA B Team last season, is the prime candidate to replace her but with the silence out of Westwood about it nobody outside the program knows who might be between the pipes for the Bruins. The nationwide appeal of UCLA could have players from everywhere landing on their own to matriculate at any time. Regardles, their robust midfield might make the pipe play moot. Florida stayed in the number two spot even though they lost in the first round of the post-season to 15th seeded Boston College and lost always mentionable goalie Marissa Higgins to medical school and residency at Cottage Hosptial in Santa Barbara. Higgins was also their player-coach for the 2014 season. The Gators always gain some players from the NCAA DI Top 5 team on their campus so they will always be tough as a result with that "feeder" program. Boston College returns just about everyone but doesn't start the season at the Santa Barbara Shootout like most every other WCLA team. In archiac fashion the regular season WCLA poll will not include teams that haven't played yet. Therefore, coming out of the Shootout weekend everyone at the Shootout will be ranked but the Eagles won't unless they somehow play a game (and win it) the first two weeks in February in Boston. A glacial end to winter might delay Boston College from being ranked in the regular season for quite some time. Pittsburgh won it all last year but graduated so many players pollsters dropped them to fourth to start the year. Chip in 'chip on a shoulder' is spelled C.H.I.Panthers for Pittsburgh and in the words of a long time WCLA coach the cupboard is not bare at Pittsburgh. Georgia showed better in the national post-season scene than SWWLL rival Florida but lost to them twice, once in the regular season and again in the SWWLL championship game...by one goal each time. If the Bulldogs solve Florida and gain some tight game coolness along the way they will move up slowly and surely this season. Ohio State was often called a one player team last year when they gained Oregon NCAA DI transfer Eve Tranchito but then a one player team made it all the way to the semifinals of the WCLA National Tournament. Improbable a one player team could do that so all that experience gained by all those players who were also on the field this goes one of two ways. The Buckeyes don't deserve a Top Ten spot because Tranchito has graduated or they do deserve it because everyone else is ready to take up the slack. The Buckeyes are ineligible for the WCLL conference tournament for an undisclosed infraction so they need to stay 6th or higher to have a shot at an at-large bid for the WCLA National Tournament this time around. Michigan returns WCLA First Team All-American goalie Grace Collins (Radnor, PA), who joined their program from the Michigan NCAA DI team last season, leaving it during Fall Ball after being heavily recruited to be their goalie. Collins can't save one situation, however, as another undisclosed infraction has the Wolverines in the same place as Ohio State for WCLL post-season play. Out. WCLL fractions aside, the Buckeyes and the Wolverines love being in similar situations with each other. Umm, prolly not. Either way, love or hate for each other, the winner of the regular season game between these two has the inside lane for an at-large spot in the post-season. They will not play each other in the WCLL post-season so their one game might be winner take all. It should be fed live-streamed if North Korea hasn't cut off our internet by then. Santa Clara has new coach Jessica Paige and anyone wondering about it is wondering what they will look like. Not whether they will be good or not, they will be good because that's the Bronco way. But the last ten years have been the same coaches at the helm or coaches who have played for those coaches. Will Santa Clara still run Monkey on defense? Will they still run that 2-3-2 look on offense with an inside picking and cutting game to get key players open? J.P. being a first time Bronco and whether any changes are for the good or the same have even the Jesuit priests on campus unsure what to expect from their team and they could have divine insight. UCSB returns and renews. The Gauchos return eleven players from 2014 who finished the regular season ranked tenth, made the trip to the WCLA National Tournament, upset 7th seeded Colorado State 15-5, lost by a goal to this year's pre-season #3 Boston College 11-12 in the quarterfinals, lost 11-12 (2 OT) to then 6th ranked Santa Clara in a consolation game and then upset 7th ranked Michigan 19-15 in the 7th place game. They also gain Nicole Rockwell (San Jose, CA) back after sophomore season off. Rockwell was a midfield starter her freshman year. UCSB has also renewed with three junior college transfers and eleven freshmen. The freshmen include two goalies, Cyrena Malkowski (Lake Forest, CA) and Kaitlyn Pike (Seaholm, MI). Either could start, play a half or play a whole game for UCSB this year as it's a close race between the two netminders. Colorado is also on the schedule for UCSB. The Buffalos were 13-8 in 2014. Cal Poly SLO is a WWLL Central opponent for UCSB along with #1 UCLA and unranked USC. The Gauchos prevailed 11-10 in a fall scrimmage in San Luis Obispo but the Mustangs were leading most of the contest with some athletic play on offense around the goal. San Diego State won WWLL South last season and UCSB plays them on a road trip south to play San Diego and the Aztecs the same weekend.
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Baltimore, MD - The January issue of Lacrosse Magazine hit the streets and it has UCSB ranked 9th in the periodical's pre-season poll. The Gauchos are one of five Western Women's Lacrosse League (WWLL) teams ranked in the pre-season. UCSB finished last season at the WCLA National Tournament with a Copyright 2024 - UCSB Womens Lacrosse | Website by LaxTeams.net