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UCSB Advances to Quarterfinals With 12-7 Win Over West Chester

Box Score

May. 6, 2009

Scottsdale, AZ - UCSB advanced to the quarterfinals of the WDIA National Championship tournament with a 12-7 win over the club from West Chester University in a first round game at the Scottsdale Sports Complex. The Gauchos led 5-1 at half-time with a more deliberate style of play than normal. UCSB  put the ball behind the net and worked it around quite a bit taking into account the Arizona heat and the desire to have some gas in the tank to advance from game to game over the next three days. The temperature at game time was an unseasonably warm 96 degrees. Even with the slow down style the Gauchos outshot their opponent 34-18 over the course of the game.

Nineteen UCSB players saw action with liberal subbing in both halves. Even with going deep into the bench and the unusual combinations of players on the field the Gauchos led 11-1 with 15 minutes remaining in the game. Then UCSB starters  all came off the field completely. That worked well for the next 8 minutes and UCSB led 12-3 with 7 minutes remaining. West Chester then mounted a little bit of a rally and scored 4 unanswered goals to pull to within the final score before the game ended.

Junior Sam Lutz (San Diego, CA) took high point honors in the game with 5 points on 1 goal and 4 assists. Sophomore Ashley Antoon-Algieri (San Ramon, CA) was right behind her with 3 goals and 1 assist. Lutz assisted Antoon-Algieri on two of her goals. In keeping with the UCSB offensive theme of all season eight different Gauchos had a goal or an assist as the attack spread the wealth once again. Freshman Jeni Centner (Tustin, CA) had 10 saves while junior Monora Seth (San Diego, CA) scooped up 3 ground balls at the defensive end and had a draw control in the midfield.

"We did exactly what we wanted to do here and we're as fresh as possible for the next round," said head coach Paul Ramsey after the game.  "We are not worried about the score differential in any particular game and we only want to advance."

Top ranked and top seeded UCSB advances to face 7th ranked and 8th seeded University of Michigan in a 12 Noon quarterfinal matchup on Thursday. The Wolverines were 17-13 winners over 9th ranked and 9th seeded UCLA. The two team have already met this year with the result slightly favoring Michigan. The Gauchos lost a 7-6 game to the Wolverines on February 13th in a game played at the Santa Barbara Shootout.

"That game was a while ago but what I remember was Michigan really slowing it down against us, keeping it on their offensive end a lot and being super patient," said Ramsey.  "We were not as patient on offense as we could have been when we got the ball and we were in too much of a hurry to score."

"It played right into their hands last time so we will make sure to be more patient this time around."

There was only one upset in the other seven first round games as 10th seeded Florida upset 7th seeded Lindenwood 15-6. Fifth seeded Cal Poly SLO survived a scare and rallied to come from behind to beat 12th seeded Georgia 15-14 with three unanswered goals in the last 5 minutes of the game. Second ranked and second seeded Santa Clara also advanced with a 24-10 dismantling of the club from University of Connecticut.

UCSB improved to 19-2 on the season while West Chester experienced their first loss and dropped to 9-1.

WDIA Tournament Scoreboard

WDIA Tournament Blog by Claire Lochary of Lacrosse Magazine On-Line