With the lacrosse season about a month away, thought I'd start this thread to collect any miscellaneous pre-season lax news that comes up, as well as any preview info that I find.
(As with every other sport, I want to emphasize I'm not in ANY way a lacrosse expert, so will appreciate corrections or clarifications to anything I wrote below. I'd never seen a match live, or I think even watched any full match on TV, before the Buffs added the sport, and I still don't understand most of the rules (not that that keeps me from yelling at the refs).)
A few random notes and links to start things off. (Some of these may have already been covered in earlier threads, but thought I'd collect them in one place, especially since I'm assuming very few in Allbuffs follow the sport that closely.):
1) Once again, I find it interesting the team is opening the season with probably it's biggest game of the regular season against its natural/ local/ conference rival DU (in Denver on Friday, Feb. 12th, at 3:00). The full schedule can be found at http://www.cubuffs.com/SportSelect.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=600&SPID=104095&SPSID=860210 .
2) I can't remember if it had been mentioned on Allbuffs already, but I believe this may be (???) the last year the Buffs will be a part of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF). With ASU planning to officially start playing D1 lacrosse next year, the Pac will have the necessary minimum 6 teams (CU, ASU, USC, Stanford, Cal and Oregon) to form its own Pac ?? lacrosse conference.
It will be interesting to see if other MPSF schools like SDSU (and maybe one or more of the Northern/ Central Cal. schools?) may want to be part of the Pac ?? conference rather than the MPSF for geographic reasons. (I know SDSU is already part of the Pac in Men's soccer, for instance.) Selfishly for CU, it would be AWESOME if DU would also join the Pac for women's lacrosse (natural travel partner and quality rival), but that may not make as much sense for DU?
3) I found a thread with a (I assume as with other sports pretty worthless) pre-season national poll (http://network.laxpower.com/laxforum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=60273) , and 2 MPSF teams are ranked in the Top 20- Stanford at #15 and USC at #20.
4) Here is a link to the article from this past September that introduces this year's class of 7 freshmen, along with links to each of their bios.- http://www.cubuffs.com/ViewArticle....4095&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=210370188 .
(Note- 1 of the 7, Shea O'Donnell, doesn't appear on the current roster, so I'd guess that, assuming it's not just a cubuffs website error, she may have ended up not coming to (or staying at) CU?)
5) It should be interesting this year to see what if anything changes in the team's play due to coaching changes, as both of Coach Elliott's assistant's who had been assisting her the 1st 2 Buff seasons (and I believe in the planning year) left and have been replaced. Also notable- the 2nd coach she hired is the 1st one who isn't from her alma mater Northwestern, as new Coach Kempney is a young coach who JUST graduated college after starring as a player at Syracuse (through the 2015 season).
(Both of the coaching additions were announced MANY months ago, but for anyone who missed them, the articles announcing the additions are at http://www.cubuffs.com/ViewArticle....4095&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=210217408 and http://www.cubuffs.com/ViewArticle....4095&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=210251989 .)
6) Lacrosse may finally be able to host its 1st Senior Day this year, as there is one senior (Sarah Lautman) listed on the roster. (Ms. Lautman was, impressively, the one player who was able to make the jump to the D1 Buff roster after playing on the CU Club team her freshman year.)
7) Of course, with the LARGE inaugural Buff class finally reaching "upperclassmen" status in this their junior seasons, I'd expect the Buffs to be better than ever this season, and to be serious contenders for both the MPSF conference crown and/ or a 1st ever NCAA tournament berth!
Note- in lacrosse, the tournament field, at least based on 2015, consists of only 26 teams qualifying (with a few top teams earning 1st round byes). As a fast growing sport, it will be interesting to see how many schools add the sport over the coming years. As reference, there were 107 schools included in the RPI listing last (2015) season. (Note- The Buffs ended up at RPI #46 last season, which was 6th out of the 10 MPSF teams, one spot behind #45 Oregon and also pretty close behind #41 SDSU.)
(As with every other sport, I want to emphasize I'm not in ANY way a lacrosse expert, so will appreciate corrections or clarifications to anything I wrote below. I'd never seen a match live, or I think even watched any full match on TV, before the Buffs added the sport, and I still don't understand most of the rules (not that that keeps me from yelling at the refs).)
A few random notes and links to start things off. (Some of these may have already been covered in earlier threads, but thought I'd collect them in one place, especially since I'm assuming very few in Allbuffs follow the sport that closely.):
1) Once again, I find it interesting the team is opening the season with probably it's biggest game of the regular season against its natural/ local/ conference rival DU (in Denver on Friday, Feb. 12th, at 3:00). The full schedule can be found at http://www.cubuffs.com/SportSelect.dbml?&DB_OEM_ID=600&SPID=104095&SPSID=860210 .
2) I can't remember if it had been mentioned on Allbuffs already, but I believe this may be (???) the last year the Buffs will be a part of the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF). With ASU planning to officially start playing D1 lacrosse next year, the Pac will have the necessary minimum 6 teams (CU, ASU, USC, Stanford, Cal and Oregon) to form its own Pac ?? lacrosse conference.
It will be interesting to see if other MPSF schools like SDSU (and maybe one or more of the Northern/ Central Cal. schools?) may want to be part of the Pac ?? conference rather than the MPSF for geographic reasons. (I know SDSU is already part of the Pac in Men's soccer, for instance.) Selfishly for CU, it would be AWESOME if DU would also join the Pac for women's lacrosse (natural travel partner and quality rival), but that may not make as much sense for DU?
3) I found a thread with a (I assume as with other sports pretty worthless) pre-season national poll (http://network.laxpower.com/laxforum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=60273) , and 2 MPSF teams are ranked in the Top 20- Stanford at #15 and USC at #20.
4) Here is a link to the article from this past September that introduces this year's class of 7 freshmen, along with links to each of their bios.- http://www.cubuffs.com/ViewArticle....4095&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=210370188 .
(Note- 1 of the 7, Shea O'Donnell, doesn't appear on the current roster, so I'd guess that, assuming it's not just a cubuffs website error, she may have ended up not coming to (or staying at) CU?)
5) It should be interesting this year to see what if anything changes in the team's play due to coaching changes, as both of Coach Elliott's assistant's who had been assisting her the 1st 2 Buff seasons (and I believe in the planning year) left and have been replaced. Also notable- the 2nd coach she hired is the 1st one who isn't from her alma mater Northwestern, as new Coach Kempney is a young coach who JUST graduated college after starring as a player at Syracuse (through the 2015 season).
(Both of the coaching additions were announced MANY months ago, but for anyone who missed them, the articles announcing the additions are at http://www.cubuffs.com/ViewArticle....4095&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=210217408 and http://www.cubuffs.com/ViewArticle....4095&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=210251989 .)
6) Lacrosse may finally be able to host its 1st Senior Day this year, as there is one senior (Sarah Lautman) listed on the roster. (Ms. Lautman was, impressively, the one player who was able to make the jump to the D1 Buff roster after playing on the CU Club team her freshman year.)
7) Of course, with the LARGE inaugural Buff class finally reaching "upperclassmen" status in this their junior seasons, I'd expect the Buffs to be better than ever this season, and to be serious contenders for both the MPSF conference crown and/ or a 1st ever NCAA tournament berth!
Note- in lacrosse, the tournament field, at least based on 2015, consists of only 26 teams qualifying (with a few top teams earning 1st round byes). As a fast growing sport, it will be interesting to see how many schools add the sport over the coming years. As reference, there were 107 schools included in the RPI listing last (2015) season. (Note- The Buffs ended up at RPI #46 last season, which was 6th out of the 10 MPSF teams, one spot behind #45 Oregon and also pretty close behind #41 SDSU.)
Last edited: