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Women's lacrosse avenges only loss of season

The rains that drenched Tucson for the past few days seemed to follow the UA women's lacrosse team back from Southern California.

Though the Wildcats (4-1) were able to defeat Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo 11-7 Saturday, the rain canceled Sunday's game against the University of California at Santa Barbara.

The UA players, though, didn't mind their weekend being cut short after their win against the Mustangs avenged a 9-4 home loss to Cal-Poly back on Feb. 5.

The loss is still Arizona's lone defeat on the year.

"We had a really good game, we're really coming together as a team," sophomore midfielder Erin Oliva said.

Senior forward Erin Bradbury led the way for UA on offense, scoring four goals. But her freshman teammate Annie Kellogg stepped up and matched Bradbury by also scoring four goals.

Oliva said Bradbury is constantly being double-teamed by opposing defenses, but Bradbury managed to overcome the problem against Cal-Poly.

"We have some different plays this year (for Bradbury), but especially in this game she was really on top of things," Oliva said.

The Wildcats now get the rest of March off as they don't play again until the Western States exhibition tournament April 8.

Things seem to be looking up for Arizona again. The Wildcats made four consecutive Western Women's Lacrosse League final fours from 1995-98 before finishing only 4-6 last year, missing the playoffs.

But last year's team was made up mostly of newcomers and freshmen, and the team's growth this year has been apparent on the field.

"We try to do a couple different things to get people to work together and focus better," Oliva said. "We had all these awesome athletes (last year) but not many of them had the fundamentals because they were so new."

This year's newcomers, like Kellogg and defender Erin Miller, have managed to make an immediate impact, too.

Another newcomer, Tori Hinsdale, stepped up and played goalie for the first time this season after starter Kim McDonough had to skip the Cal-Poly game due to personal reasons.