Kiernan’s Four Goals Lifts Buffs Past No. 16 UMass

DELAND, Fla. — The 2017 Colorado women's lacrosse season is off to an incredible start as the Buffs (2-0) recorded their second win against a top-20 ranked team in as many games, knocking off the No. 16 UMass Minutewomen, 11-7, on Friday afternoon.

Junior Darby Kiernan led CU with four goals and an assist, lifting the Buffs past UMass (0-2) in the second ever meeting between the two programs. Three of her goals were free-positon shots, while the other was scored when CU was a man-down midway through the first half.

WHAT HAPPENED: The Buffs, who are ranked 14th in the Inside Lacrosse poll and are 11th in the U.S. Lacrosse poll, led 5-3 after the first half, but the Minutewomen came back with two quick goals within the first minute of the second half, evening the game at 5-5.

Senior Johnna Fusco answered for the Buffs with 25:14 left in the second, recording her first of three goals of the day to give CU a 6-5 advantage. From there, the Buffs would never trail and kept adding to their score. Senior Katie Macleay and Kiernan scored the next two before sophomore Samantha Nemirov tallied her first goal of the season. Fusco scored the final two goals of the game for the Buffs.

Colorado out-shot UMass 35-24, which included 21 shots for the Buffs in the first half alone. CU also had the edge in groundballs (13-6). The Buffs converted on 6-of-12 free-positions shots, while UMass went 0-4. The Minutewomen had the slight advantage in draw controls at 12-8.

TURNING POINT: UMass got on the board first, scoring two consecutive goals, but Colorado fired back, tallying five straight to put the Buffs up 5-2. Kiernan had the first three before sophomore Miranda Stinson and junior Carly Cox added goals of their own.

KEY STATISTIC: The Minutewomen had 17 turnovers in the game, five of which were caused by the Buffs. Senior Amelia Brown was responsible for three of those, which was a career-high.

TEAM LEADERS:

Colorado
Points: 13
Goals: 11
Assists: 2
Draw Controls: 8
Ground Balls: 13
Saves: 8

UMass
Points: 11
Goals: 7
Assists: 4
Draw Controls: 12
Ground Balls: 6
Saves: 10

NOTABLE:

Kiernan recorded her 19th career hat-trick with CU's first three goals of the game.
Fusco tallied her 27th career hat-trick, scoring all three in the second half.
Paige Soenksen had eight saves, one in the first half and seven in the second half.
The Buffs scored one man-up goal, a man-down goal and nine even strength goals in the game.
CU cleared on 22 of 24 attempts (.917) and held UMass to 13 of 18 (.722).
The Buffs have scored 11 goals in each of their first two games.
The all-time series between the two schools is tied 1-1.

QUOTEABLE:
Head Coach Ann Elliott
We knew going into this game it was going to be a fight. UMass is a tough team and they are athletic and scrappy. I thought we came out a little slow and it took us a while to get into the game. I think our defense played very well again and was able to get stops when we needed them. Offensively we faced a few different defenses and we did well adjusting and playing together. To be successful against good teams we need everyone working together and I thought we did a good job of that today, but we need to continue to get better.

Overall we need to play smarter and not make things difficult for ourselves. We have a lot of areas we need to clean up, draws, shooting and fouls to name a few, and I think this game shows us just how important all those little things are when you are playing good teams. We look forward to our next opportunity to play and to try to put together a full 60 minutes.

UP NEXT: The Buffs will face Stetson at 10 a.m. on Sunday, Feb. 19. Live stats are available at www.stetsonstats.com and a live stream is available for a fee at www.gohatters.com/watch.

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Team Stats

Darby Kiernan

Johnna Fusco

Carly Cox

Samantha Nemirov

Players Mentioned

Amelia Brown

Carly Cox

Johnna Fusco

Darby Kiernan

Katie Macleay

Samantha Nemirov

Paige Soenksen

Miranda Stinson

Players Mentioned

Amelia Brown

Carly Cox

Johnna Fusco

Darby Kiernan

Katie Macleay

Samantha Nemirov

Paige Soenksen

Miranda Stinson