Colorado
8-6, 3-4
California
3-12, 2-6
Cal Rallies To Edge CU Lacrosse, 12-10
April 19, 2015 | Lacrosse
BERKELEY, Calif. – There are worse ways to spend a Sunday afternoon than playing lacrosse under the mild Berkeley sun, but there are certainly better ways than how the University of Colorado lacrosse team lost there.
The Buffs fell 12-10 to Cal after the Bears outscored Colorado 7-2 in the second half.
“They executed well, offensively they played well and we didn't,” Colorado head coach Ann Elliott said. “We didn't execute well. We were getting frustrated when we shouldn't get frustrated and at the end of the day we got outplayed.”
Buffs midfielder Darby Kiernan led all scorers with five goals, and Colorado got two each from middies Marie Moore and Blair Sisk.
Attacker Bella Huther paced the Bears with four goals, and fellow attackers Lizz Lavie and Chloe Landry also netted two each.
At times in the first half it looked like the Buffs would pull away, but every time they pushed their lead to two or three goals, the Bears clawed back. Colorado converted its first three free-position shots on its way to a 4-2 advantage, but Cal netted two of the next three goals to make it a one-point game.
Then Kiernan sent the Buffs on another run; she scored four goals in a seven-minute stretch in the first half as Colorado led by as much as 8-4, but it could never put the Bears down.
“They tried to take her out of the game a little bit,” Elliott said of how Cal adjusted to Kiernan's performance. “We needed more people to step up with the confidence and control that she was playing with.”
Goalie Paige Soenksen stood on her head for much of the end of the first half — she made a spectacular leaping save of a Huther shot up the middle — but, when Meredith Haggerty made it an 8-5 game 13 seconds before halftime, the Buffs had been scoreless for six minutes.
Colorado's drought continued until Kiernan scored her fifth goal with 22 minutes left in the game. It was Kiernan's second five-goal game of the season, but when it came the Buffs had gone nearly 14 minutes without scoring, and in that time Cal trimmed their lead to 9-7.
Kiernan's goal was the Buffs' only shot until there were 10 minutes left in the game. The Bears outshot the Buffs 12-4 in the second half, and Colorado committed 18 fouls, including three yellow cards — Cal had just five fouls and didn't turn it over once.
“I liked the passion, but we didn't play with a lot of control,” Elliott said. “The emotions were getting a little out of control in some instances and we have to be better than that. In the second half, it just slowly started to catch up to us and Cal was believing in themselves.”
The Bears' second-half onslaught was impressive; they assisted on all but one of their goals, and their passing picked the Buffs apart. Cal's senior captain, middie Gaby Christman, tied the game with 14 minutes left, and Landry put the Bears ahead seven minutes later.
That was part of a 16-minute stretch in which Cal scored five unanswered goals; the Bears led by as much as 12-9 before Buffs attacker Johnna Fusco scored with two minutes left. That was her only goal of the game, a quiet outing for one of Colorado's most lethal offensive players. In the end, it was a mostly academic score, because Cal won the ensuing draw and never relinquished control.
Now, the Buffs have to regroup in Boulder, with an upcoming weekend set against Fresno State and Oregon. Colorado will take on the Bulldogs on Friday at 3 p.m. on Kittredge Field.
“It will be nice to be back in Boulder,” Elliott said. “It will give us a little more time to focus on things we need to focus on and eliminate any distractions.”
