By Joseph M. Molina
Arizona Daily Wildcat
April 9, 1996
The No. 2 Arizona men's lacrosse team survived a nonleague game on Sunday night in which all that could have gone wrong, did.First, the game started 20 minutes late because the officials never showed up, and alternate referees had to be found.
Then, once the game got underway, the players received a big surprise when the sprinkler system went on automatically 20 minutes into the contest and caused a 10-minute delay.
Oh, and there was a game played. The Laxcats defeated the Phoenix Lacrosse Club 12-6.
Arizona (10-2, 5-1 in the Western Collegiate Lacrosse League) muddled through a slow first half, because three players arrived late, and took a 6-5 lead into the locker room.
All the distractions threw the play off early in the first half, but the Laxcats settled down for the rest of the half, Arizona head coach Mickey-Miles Felton said.
Phoenix had poor ball control in the first half and committed 16 first-half turnovers.
"I went into the locker room wondering what could go wrong in the second half," Felton said.
The worst did follow in the second half. The Laxcats lost sophomore Charlie Roberto 12 minutes into the second half with a sprained left knee, who may be lost for the season.
Despite the injury, the Laxcats outscored Phoenix 6-1 in the second half and ran away with the game.
"We were short-handed, but everybody did what they had to," Felton said.
"We didn't play up to our ability. We were too relaxed. Our main players stepped up and our defense played well," said junior Ben Anderson, who scored two goals.
Junior Josh Sfara scored four consecutive goals in the second half, and finished with a game-high five goals and an assist.
Senior goalie Justin Nels had nine saves.
The Laxcats will play Arizona State in Tempe tomorrow night in a nonleague game.
Last year, the Laxcats beat ASU 14-6 in Tucson to move the winning streak against the Sun Devils to 18 games.
Arizona leads the series 73-6.
Laxcats even score with win over UCLA
The Arizona women's lacrosse team (11-2, 7-0 in the Southern California Women's Lacrosse Association) avenged an early-season 6-5 loss to UCLA with a 19-4 victory on Saturday morning at Bear Down Field.
Things did not look good at the beginning, however, as UCLA scored a goal just seven seconds into the game.
But Arizona followed that score with an 11-0 run to blow the game open.
The Laxcats led 9-1 at the intermission, and it could have been more, but two UA goals were disallowed in the first half.
Senior Terry Repp and sophomore Andrea Bozzolo shared game-high honors with five goals each.
Bozzolo exploded with three goals in the first half and Repp mirrored her performance in the second half with three of her own.
Sophomore Jessica Deal had four goals, but was cut on her right knee near the end of the first half. She played the second half but was ejected for her second warning of an illegal check. Deal received a red card meaning that she will not be allowed to play in their next game.
"We were playing tough, and we were a lot better conditioned then they were," Deal said.
Seven different Laxcats scored in the contest.
The goal of the game came when sophomore Amy Folkemer made a quick pass from behind the goal to Repp for the easy score.
"We worked on our fast breaks, and they had a hard time handling our midfield press," Repp said.
"UCLA had speed, but our transition frustrated them, and our defense completely took them out of the game," Arizona head coach Matt Proutt said.
Junior goalie Hope Wisneski had eight saves.
When Arizona played UCLA in February, they were without key players Jami Adelman and Heather Kalmbach, Proutt said.
"We lost to UCLA and to UC-San Diego, and we beat both teams the second time around," Proutt said.
The Laxcats will next face Whittier in the final game of the regular season Friday in California.