Utes Down Buffs, Take 1st
Overall In RMLC
By Nick Salen; Public Relations, CU Lacrosse
Boulder, CO (March 22, 2010)- The University of Utah’s
dynamic defensive strategy played a key role in their 9-6 upset of No. 10
Colorado late Monday night. While the Buffaloes struggled getting settled in
the offensive zone, Utah was able to take advantage of turnovers and errors in Colorado’s
passing and groundball game.
Utah’s Mark Manning highlighted the Utes’ offense with 4
goals and an assist, while the defensive side of the ball was met by a defense
that shut down the Buffs most of the night.
One individual in particular was goaltender Alex Watanwekin, stopping
CU’s offense cold most of the night on their rare opportunities in the Utah
zone. Colorado meanwhile again, just
could not get anything done offensively, being plagued by poor passing early
on, followed by losing the majority of the groundball and man-ball situations,
resulting in the lopsided possession in favor of the Utes.
“Utah did a good job of holding onto the ball most of the
game,” Pete Stevenson commented after the game.
“They were on offense about three quarters of the game. We probably had it for ten minutes total,
almost all our goals came in transition, and very few came on six on six. We weren’t able to get settled with the way
they pressured out. “
Freshman Doug Lilburne was responsible for half of Colorado’s
scores throughout the night, and completed the hat trick late in the second
half, but was not enough to mount a comeback at home. Often CU could only find opportunities to
score by making action behind the net, where Lilburne and junior James Blackburn
do what they do best, wrap around and shoot point blank. Unfortunately, Utah read the play time after
time, and where the poles couldn’t turn away the two attackman, Watanwekin was
between the pipes to deny their shots.
Blackburn would only tally one goal himself during the contest, the
final two goals came early and late in the game during a transition courtesy of
Nick Kupcewicz and Kyle Driver.
With the win in Boulder, Utah improves to 6-1 and first
place overall in the RMLC. Despite
several blowout games to Division II teams, Utah has proved Monday night that
they can get the job done just as easily against Division I opponents. Next they will play Colorado State, who is
currently 3rd overall in the polls, before returning home. The win over CU gives them the momentum they
need to go into Ft. Collins and hand the Rams their first loss of the
season.
Colorado drops to .500 at 2-2
and sits in the basement at 6th place. They now travel Tuesday to Orange County,
California where they will face No. 22 Loyola Marymount Wednesday night, and
wrap up Friday versus No. 2 Chapman. The
team however, isn’t concerned with their opponents at the time being, as they
are more focused on getting back in appropriate playing form since they know it
will take a lot more effort and much less mistakes to come out of the weekend
with victories.
Lilburne was quoted after the game on the team’s performance
on the field, on how they missed several easy passes, groundballs and
shots. “Its just fundamentals, the team
needs to be into it. Even away/after
practice when Pete isn’t here we need to be practicing. If we want a national championship this is
what we have to do.”