Men's lacrosse off for St. Louis

The Laxcats' quest to bring home the inaugural United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) collegiate club championship trophy begins at 11:30 a.m. Tucson time tomorrow at the Anheuser-Busch Conference and Sports Center in St. Louis.

The four-day, single-elimination tournament is the first national event of its kind € bringing together the top eight collegiate clubs in the country.

The other seven teams are Virginia Tech, UC-Santa Barbara, Brigham Young, Texas, Illinois, Simon Fraser and Auburn.

For Laxcats assistant coach Wes Barton, who is suffering from a cancer in his left leg, this is a once in a lifetime opportunity to go to the national championships.

"This is as exciting as it gets and as close as I'll get to playing," Barton said. "It's something that I'll remember for the rest of my life."

The Laxcats' first opponent on Friday will be eighth-seeded Auburn, the Southeast Lacrosse Conference champions.

Laxcat head coach Mickey-Miles Felton said he is confident of his team's shot, but doesn't want to underestimate his opponent.

"The first game of a tournament is always a challenge because the team may not be ready to play quite yet, but I hope our guys will be ready," he said.

Felton said that Auburn is a highly organized program with a roster of over 60 players € only running a rotation of 15-17 players € compared to the Laxcats' roster of 20.

Auburn is led by midfielder Scott Carter who has 24 goals this season. The Laxcats counter with senior Josh Sfara who has 57 goals on the season € an average of 3.8 per game.

For both teams, one of the strongest positions is goaltender. Arizona goalie Dave Beer and Auburn goalie Jay Berni match-up well.

Berni has 84 saves and is stopping 79 percent of the shots against him. Beer's blocking is at 62 percent, but he has 253 saves in 15 games. He is coming off a career-high 39 saves against Sonoma State in the Western Collegiate Lacrosse League semifinals.

Should the Laxcats get by the Tigers they will face the winner of BYU-Texas on Saturday.

The Laxcats beat BYU 14-9 on Feb. 15 in Tucson.

"They (BYU) are a very big challenge in player and skill wise," Felton said. "When we beat them, they were without their two top attackmen, who are big in scoring for the Cougars."

One of the attackmen, Felton said, is a five to six goals per game scorer.

"The Cougars are playing better since the beginning of the season, and so are we, so it should be a good game," Felton said.

Another challenge will be the playing surface. The championships are on artificial turf, a surface the team has never played on.

"I think that the field we practice on (at the Rincon Vista Sports Complex) isn't any harder than playing on turf," Felton said. "A ball that is going to go out on our grass will go out on turf."