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UCSB Gets Late Bid To WCLA National Championship Tournament

Apr. 21, 2016

Atlanta, GA - The Gauchos post-season has been extended. UCSB received a late night phone call on Wednesday from WCLA National Championship selection committee chair Adam Weinstein, based in Atlanta, Georgia. Weinstein told head coach Paul Ramsey the club from Penn State had withdrawn and the Gauchos were invited. UCSB thought their season were over and Ramsey was about to post wrap up meeting times for players to come meet and turn in their uniforms. Tied for eleventh in the national rankings heading into their conference tournament, UCSB lost in the Western Women's Lacrosse League semifinals to 6th ranked UCLA in the 1 v. 4 semifinal match-up. That's how competitive it is in the WWLL. The top four seeds in the conference were all top 15 teams. 

"When I saw my phone light up at almost 10pm our time and it was 1am for Adam I knew it could be good news," said Ramsey the next day. 

The WCLA National Championship Tournament is in Winston-Salem, North Carolina May 3rd - 7th. The Gauchos will go in as the 15th seed but are non-plussed about it. The placement gets them a first round rematch with Colorado State. Back on February 13th UCSB started slow in their regular season game with the Rams and were down by six goals at halftime. The Gauchos rallied and came almost all the way back by outscoring CSU 6-1 in the second half but lost 10-9. Here's the Recap of that game.

"That is not the only game the other team starts faster than us and we have had to climb out of a hole," commented Ramsey.  "With this second season just gifted to us our staff is going to look at how to start playing from the first second of action and not wait."

"We're going to look at everything from pregame meal to warm-ups to visualization." 

Another focus for UCSB will be getting everyone healthy. There was no single game played during the regular season and the WWLL Tournament with everyone suited up. Someone was always misssing from the action. If not out of the game they were out of practice all week nursing a strained quadricep. Or someone who had practiced all week experienced something late in the week that kept them off the field on game day.

"We like our chances at the WCLA Tournament to win the whole thing even though we are the last team in, so to speak," Ramsey added.  "We're going to prepare to be going in hot in North Carolina."