By Brent MacDonald
Season openers are often one of the most exciting games for a team, especially when the match is held on a home field. For UCSB women’s lacrosse, the anticipation about its home opener has been felt for months.“Practicing is super fun…but it’s no comparison to an actual game,” senior attack Ashley Antoon-Algieri said. “When all the adrenaline is pumping through you…it’s exciting.”
Gaucho women’s lacrosse began its season this Saturday with a home match against Claremont College. Prior to the game, UCSB’s record against Claremont was an undefeated 3-0 over the past three years, with each of the three wins coming by a margin of two goals. Claremont College women’s lacrosse is a Division 3 athletic team, which means it is both school sponsored, and nationally ranked. These are two qualities that UCSB women’s lacrosse lacks, yet neither of which had an effect on the outcome of the game.
“Worst case, we lose to a great opponent,” Antoon-Algieri said before the game. “Best case, we strut our stuff and we win.”
It was the first official match of the season for UCSB, as the only competition the team has seen thus far has been an alumni game during fall quarter in November, and inter-squad scrimmages during practice.
UCSB was dominant throughout the match, beating Claremont by a score of 21-11. Nine players scored at least once for the Gauchos, and Antoon-Algieri led the team with five goals and five assists. Junior Maegan Cruse scored five goals as well, in addition to three assists.
“It always helps to start with a big win,” Antoon-Algieri said after the game. “We were focused and we had a lot of fun.”
A new addition to UCSB’s practices has been a rigorous strength-training regimen, implemented in one-hour sessions during two practices per week. The training program has already shown improvement in many players, and the team looks forward to exploiting the benefits of the hard workouts.
“If you train slow you’ll be slow, if you train fast you’ll be fast. The way you train is the way you play,” junior defender Courtney Choi said. “A lot of girls have been pushing themselves a lot harder and it’s showing.”
The game against Claremont was the first of four games leading up to the annual Santa Barbara Shootout, which is scheduled for the weekend of February 18-20. A record 64 teams will participate in the 23rd annual event, which will bring over 2,500 athletes, coaches, referees and family members to the sunny setting of Santa Barbara.
“It’s a lot of great players in one spot,” Antoon-Algieri said. “It’s our favorite tournament of the year…it’s a great venue and a lot of girls enjoy it.”
Both the weeks leading up to the tournament and the shootout itself will provide UCSB with the game time experience that it has been training for since fall quarter. However national championship games won’t be played for months,
and the Gauchos know that the game against Claremont is only the beginning of a long season.
“We’re preparing ourselves for more competition,” Choi said. “We need to focus on each game before moving to the next one.”
