By
Jeff Lund
Arizona Daily Wildcat
UA, No. 20 UCSD to meet tomorrow in WCLL playoffs
Last weekend's regular season finale did not turn out the way UA head coach Mickey-Miles Felton had hoped.
Scheduling games against Colorado and Colorado State - two of the top teams in the country - was supposed to help the UA lacrosse team gear up for the playoffs.
Two losses later, the reeling Laxcats will try to re-focus and make a run at the West Coast Lacrosse League championship when they take on No. 20 University of California-San Diego tomorrow afternoon at 1 p.m. at Laxcat Coliseum.
Arizona (10-4) fell to No. 11 in the polls following the losses to No. 1 Colorado State and the No. 9 Buffaloes last weekend.
For UA players, tomorrow's game against the Tritons will be a chance to seek a bit of revenge.
Arizona played UCSD earlier in the season, but the Laxcats - suffering from team-imposed suspensions - fell to the Tritons on the road, 14-13 in overtime.
"There is a revenge factor," junior Josh Morrison said. "It will be good to show them our team at full strength and show them what they missed. But we are just looking for some momentum."
UCSD (8-2) is the winner of seven straight, including the March 16 win against Arizona in La Jolla, Calif.
Felton said he hopes the Wildcats focus more on precision than payback.
"There is some ego involved," Felton said. "My hope is that we will be able to get past that. I don't think that we are too concerned that we lost to these guys and we need to show them this time. What we need to do is set the stage for the rest of the games."
Arizona will change its attack for tomorrow's match, adding some new defensive sets to catch the Tritons off-guard.
"(We need to) revolve around the future of how we will be playing lacrosse for the remainder of the season," Felton said. "The style of play that we want to progress to will be evident this weekend."
Assistant coach Adam Hopkins said the team took a lot from last weekend's losses.
"The team is very focused," Hopkins said. "We are putting in a new defense and offense as a result of the games in Colorado.
"People might think that a loss would be the most devastating thing, but losing when our team is at full strength can teach us a lot. We are doing things we need to do to improve."
