Colorado
Jacksonville
Buffs Open NCAA Lacrosse Vs. Dolphins
May 10, 2018 | Lacrosse, Neill Woelk
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Win or go home.
From this point on, the Colorado Buffaloes' lacrosse season is a simple equation.
Friday afternoon, Ann Elliott's Buffs will make their second NCAA Tournament appearance in program history in a 2 p.m. first-round game against Jacksonville at the University of Florida's Dizney Stadium. (The game will be live-streamed on the University of Florida's YouTube channel).
A year ago, CU's first trip to the NCAA Tournament was short-lived, consisting of a 13-7 loss to UMass in the first round. This time around, the Buffs' immediate goal is to make their second NCAA appearance a little more memorable — and longer lasting — than the first.
"It's a huge opportunity," said CU senior Darby Kiernan, the program's all-time leader in goals (201) and assists (71). "This year we definitely want to go further in the tournament."
If the Buffs can collect that first-ever NCAA win Friday, they will earn a Sunday morning rematch with sixth-seeded Florida. CU lost to Florida, 16-9, in the second game of the season this year on the Gators' home turf.
But the Buffs, ranked 15th in the latest coaches poll, aren't looking past the 16-3 Dolphins, and neither are they spending much time thinking about last year's NCAA appearance.
More than anything, they have spent the last 10 days working on correcting the mistakes that led to a stunning 15-6 loss to Stanford in the April 29 Pac-12 tournament title game. After beating the Cardinal twice in the regular season, the Buffs were dominated by Stanford in a game that ended CU's six-game win streak.
The Buffs have done their best to address those mistakes and make sure they aren't repeated against the Dolphins, who won the Atlantic Sun Conference regular season and tournament title.
"We made things really hard on ourselves," Elliott said. "We missed a lot of first-opportunity ground balls, first-opportunity passes. … When you're not executing offensively, which we really weren't, and making some mistakes, having some trouble on draws, you give a team a lot of opportunities and it's easy to get down on yourself. It's deflating when you don't execute and then you have to go back and play defense again. It's deflating when you turn the ball over one out of four times in our transition. We just have to do a better job of controlling what we can control."
The Buffs know they will see a high-powered offense from Jacksonville. Led by attacker Ashtyn Hiron, the Dolphins lead the nation in goals per game (18.47) and shots per game (39.16), and they are second in assists (9.68) and forced turnovers (12.95).
"They're fast and they're aggressive in transition," Elliott said. "Being able to limit their opportunities and on the flip side capitalize on ours is a huge momentum thing."
That momentum, Elliott has been stressing to her team, is key. In the loss to Stanford, the Buffs fell behind early, then allowed the early mistakes to build into more.
"We did things well, we were in the game, until emotionally we took ourselves out of the game," Elliott said. "We started focusing on the wrong things and one little thing led to the next and that spread throughout our whole team. … That's something we can't let happen because when you play a good team, you get in trouble. You can't give anybody extra opportunities and you have to keep fighting. Mentally, emotionally, for whatever reason, we took ourselves out of a game before we were actually out of it."
But one thing the Buffs also know is that they have bounced back from tough losses before. After losing to Northwestern early in the season and falling to 1-2, Colorado rebounded to win six of its next seven.
Then, after a midseason loss to Denver, the Buffs bounced back to win six in a row, including wins over USC, Oregon and Stanford.
And, this is a Buffs team that continues to play for the memory of teammate Julia Sarcona, who died in a car crash just before the season began.
"We're resilient and we've been through a lot," Elliott said. "This is a team that wants to keep fighting and keep getting better. Our message after our loss was obviously we can give up or we can keep fighting and hope that we get another opportunity. This team undoubtedly wanted to fight. … This is a team that is going to respond and is just excited to get another opportunity together."
To counter the Dolphins' high-scoring offense, the Buffs will need a stellar day from the defense, beginning with goalkeeper Julia Lisella. The Buffs sophomore has compiled a 12-3 record this year, and is allowing just 8.54 goals per game — best in the Pac-12 and fourth in the NCAA.
Lisella gets plenty of help from her defenders, including seniors Sarah Brown and Kelsie Garrison. Brown leads CU with 1.78 forced turnovers per game while Garrison is right behind at 1.50. Brown also leads Colorado in ground balls (2.83) with Garrison at 2.78.
Brown and Garrison are two of several CU seniors who missed their graduation ceremonies on Thursday — meaning they would like to extend their lacrosse season as long as possible.
"It doesn't really even feel real that I'm graduating because lacrosse season is still going on," Brown said. "Then it will all hit me and it will probably be very emotional. So I would love to keep going on as long as possible."
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
