With lacrosse season in full swing, there has been plenty of action for both the men’s and women’s Pioneers lacrosse teams. Here is the midseason update:
Men’s Lacrosse
The DU men’s lacrosse team has advanced in the national rankings to No. 14 overall, following a three-game win streak.
The Pioneers are 6-2 overall and 2-0 in Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference play (ECAC).
The team’s only two losses this season have come to two of the three best teams in the country, No. 1-ranked Syracuse and No. 3-ranked Notre Dame.
Denver is coming off three big wins against two conference foes in Loyola and Air Force – which has made them undefeated in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference.
In addition, the team survived a four overtime contest against Sacred Heart, winning 13-12 with freshman Jeremy Noble’s game winner.
“Sometimes your greatest memories are in losses and other times your worst memories are in wins, that’s what’s crazy about athletics,” said head coach Bill Tierney.
He was speaking about both of their “disasters” of a win over Sacred Heart, which went into four overtimes and he considered DU fortunate to get out of there with a win.
On the other hand, their heartbreaking 10-9 loss to Notre Dame on March 12 in front of a sell-out crowd at the Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium, showed the kind of skill and heart that makes the Pioneers a contender in May’s NCAA men’s national tournament.
In addition to preseason All-Americans Mark Matthews and Alex Demopolous, Tierney credits the strong face-off play of Chase Cararro for the Pioneers’ success so far this season.
Carraro was dominant in DU’s most recent win last Saturday over Air Force, scoring three goals and winning 18 of 23 face-off attempts in front of another home sell-out crowd.
With four of the next five games in conference, Tierney says, “our challenge is to remember that the next game is our biggest challenge.”
The Pioneers are looking to repeat as ECAC regular season champions and secure the top seed in May’s ECAC Tournament, which will be held at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium on May 5-7.
Denver faces conference foe Hobart this Saturday at 10 a.m. MST. in Geneva, NY.
Women’s Lacrosse
The Pioneers are 2-8 overall but still undefeated in conference play, with a 20-7 win over St. Mary’s, making them 1-0 in the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation.
University of Denver head coach Liza Kelly said, “We did not have a preseason so we have a lot of fresh faces out there, players trying different positions, and there is definitely a learning curve because we are only getting the kinks worked out now.”
But the Pioneers are still in a good position behind the outstanding play of MPSF Player of the Week Alex Befus. The Pioneers have the majority of their conference games late in the season. So far this season, Befus has 20 points (16 goals 4 assists). She has also started 10 of 10 games.
“We are really trying to get the girls to buy-in to the fact that we play a hard schedule out of conference to prepare us for the post-season,” said Kelly.
The regular season conference games are especially important because only the top four teams go to the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation conference tournament and the winner of that tournament gets an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
The Pioneers are in the middle of seven-game streak, all to be played away. It includes match ups against Marist, Quinnipiac, Standford, UC Davis, and Fresno State.
Kelly and her team are working to dial in and focus on being confident while sticking to the game plan with only two games left before they head into conference play.
DU will return home to Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium on April 16 at 1:00 p.m. MST., where they will play conference opponent Cal before concluding their season against Oregon the following week.
