Colorado
13-5
Stanford
15-4
Buffs Fall To Stanford In Pac-12 Tourney Final
April 29, 2018 | Lacrosse, Neill Woelk
BOULDER — Home-field advantage proved to be no help to the Colorado Buffaloes on Sunday in the Pac-12 women's lacrosse tournament championship game.
Instead, the Stanford Cardinal avenged a pair of regular season losses to the Buffs with a dominating 15-6 win at Prentup Field to claim the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Colorado dropped to 13-5 with the loss, which ended the Buffs' six-game win streak as well as a 19-game home winning streak. Stanford improved to 15-4.
Now, the Buffs must await next Sunday's NCAA Tournament selection announcement to see if they will earn their second straight postseason berth.
After winning the Pac-12 regular season title and entering the week with a No. 12 RPI, Colorado is considered a good bet to earn an at-large bid. Still, nothing is guaranteed until the NCAA Selection Committee announces its choices. Thirteen conference tournament champs earn automatic bids with 13 at-large bids also granted.
"The only thing guaranteed is if we had won today," said CU coach Ann Elliott. "I think hopefully we've done a good enough job over the season of building a great resume to be able to get an at-large bid, but there is a lot of lacrosse to be played in the next week in different conferences and we'll see where we end up."
Elliott was clearly disappointed by her team's effort in Sunday's championship game.
"I thought after last season we would come out and understand what it takes to fight for a championship when you're tired and when things don't go your way and we didn't," she said. "We got frustrated, we did dumb things and we weren't tough enough to battle back against a team that's very tough and battles. So if we're fortunate enough next Sunday for someone to give us an opportunity to continue to play, we have to get better and we have to take advantage of that but it's not going to be easy."
HOW IT HAPPENED: Neither of Colorado's wins over the Cardinal in the regular season came easily. The Buffs had to rally from a seven-goal deficit in the conference opener in Boulder to take an 18-16 win, then was stretched to overtime before collecting an 11-10 win at Stanford in mid-April.
But unlike the first game between the two teams, the Buffs had no comeback in their pocket Sunday.
Instead, the Cardinal jumped to an early lead and never let up. Stanford took a 7-2 lead into intermission, then put the game away with four goals in the first 2:35 of the second half, including three in a 34-second burst that visibly deflated the Buffs.
"We've rallied before but we've played a lot better before in the first halves in those opportunities and in this one we weren't," Elliott said. "We weren't doing the little things. We were getting beat to ground balls. All the little plays they were making and we weren't. … Our backs really went against the wall but credit to them. They deserved to win today. They're a great team and I think they will be very successful in the NCAA Tournament."
For most of the day, the Buffs had no answer for Stanford goalie Allie DaCar. While Colorado did get 35 shots off, only 20 were on goal, and DaCar turned away 14 of those.
"They were doing nothing different," said CU senior Darby Kiernan. "We were getting the looks but not finishing our shots."
No Buff scored more than one goal Sunday, and CU had just two assists in the game. The six goals were the fewest by CU since an 11-5 loss to Southern California last year.
After CU's Samantha Nemirov tied the game at 1-1 with a free-position shot at the 19:21 mark of the first half, the Cardinal put together a 3-0 run to take control. CU momentarily stopped the run with a Carly Cox goal at 14:48, but the Cardinal then scored the last three goals of the half, then tallied four more to open the second half for an 11-2 lead with 27:25 still to play.
CU finally ended an 18-minute scoring drought with a Kiernan goal at the 26:26 mark, but Stanford answered with another four-goal run to put the game away. The second goal of the surge gave the Cardinal a 10-goal lead and started the running clock.
To their credit, the Buffs didn't quit. After Stanford pushed its edge to 15-3, the Buffs came back to narrow the margin to nine, 15-6, with goals from Sarah Brown, Sadie Grozier and Miranda Stinson, but it was too little too late to change the outcome.
Three different Cardinal players scored three goals: Ali Baiocco, Galen Lew and Areta Buness.
TURNING POINT: Even though Colorado trailed 7-2 at the half, the Buffs still felt they were in the game, especially since they had overcome a 12-6 halftime deficit to Stanford in their first meeting this year. But the Cardinal made sure there would be no comeback Sunday by scoring four goals in the first 2:35 of the second half.
WHAT IT MEANS: The Buffs must now wait for next Sunday's NCAA Tournament selection process to see if they will be awarded a second straight postseason berth.
QUOTEWORTHY: "We're going to practice assuming we can extend our season. We're going to practice and see what we can do. We're going to get to work. We're going to work hard and understand that to be successful at the end of the season no one is going to give you anything and no one cares if you're tired. No one cares if you're sore. No one cares if you fell down. You have to get back up and we have to be tougher and we'll work on that this week." — CU coach Ann Elliott
Contact: Neill.Woelk@Colorado.edu
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