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UCSB Downs Minnesota 20-12 In First Round

Box Score

May. 9, 2012

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.

"It took us a while to get into a rhythym on offense so we have to give Minnesota credit for stepping up," said UCSB head coach Paul Ramsey way after the game.

"But we kept working at it and did a decent job moving without the ball and I think that made the difference."

UCSB outshot the Gophers 42-26 with a shooting percentage just under 50% on 20 for 42 shooting. Draw controls were about even with the Gauchos holding a slight edge at 18-16. UCSB will look to tighten up more on defense by tomorrow since UC Davis is a team that needs to be defended, not being a group of players that mess around with the ball much at all. The two teams have met twice already this year and the Gauchos were 1 goal winners so the Aggies will want to erase those results in one game.

"We know precisely what to do tomorrow," said Ramsey, 'but so, of course, do they so it is the game of the day to me."

In addition to UCSB and UC Davis advancing two other WWLL teams won their first round games. Twelfth seeded Santa Clara upset 5th seeded Colorado 18-17 and 9th seeded UCLA beat 8th seeded Chapman 13-8. The results put four WWLL teams in the national quarterfinals.

• Lacrosse Magazine On-Line Article (All Games)