University of Massachusets Athletics
Women's Lax Opens Season Against Northwestern
February 04, 2010 | Women's Lacrosse
Feb. 4, 2010
AMHERST, Mass. - The 2010 UMass women's lacrosse season gets underway this Saturday, Feb. 6 in San Diego as the Minutewomen face five-time defending national champion Northwestern. The game is set to begin at 8 PM in California (11 PM EST) and will be part of the Surfside Lacrosse Cup held at Rancho Bernardo High School.
The Surfside Lacrosse Cup, a weekend of competition and clinics, will be held Saturday and Sunday. Tickets are $10 (discounts for children). The Sunday schedule features a club tournament and clinics for high school players, youth players and coaches.
This will be a re-match of last season's NCAA First Round meeting between UMass and Northwestern. It will also be the fifth time in the last three years that the two teams have met.
UMass has been picked to repeat as Atlantic 10 Champions after winning both the regular-season and tournament titles last year. The Minutewomen return nine of 12 starters including scoring leader Jackie Lyons and starting goalie Katie Florence.
Saturday's game will also have special meaning for senior Merritt Cosgrove who hails from Carlsbad, Calif. Cosgrove played for La Costa Canyon High School, graduating in 2006, where she was an All-San Diego lacrosse selection. Total distance from her former high school to the site of Saturday's game - 22 miles.
LYONS LEADS MINUTEWOMEN
• After a break-out sophomore season, junior Jackie Lyons is one of the top returning players for the Minutewomen. In 2009, she nearly set the school's single-season record for points with 71 on 44 goals and 27 assists. She also had seven game-winning goals.
• For her career, she has started 37 consecutive games and has 84 career points (53 goals, 31 assists).
• This past summer, Lyons earned a spot on the U.S. Developmental Team roster and has been training with some of the nation's top lacrosse players through the offseason and preseason schedule.
COSGROVE, WALKER GO INTERNATIONAL
• Senior Merritt Cosgrove and associate head coach Acacia Walker each spent time abroad over the summer in the FIL World Cup held in Prague. Cosgrove played for Team Ireland along with former teammate Jackie Rosenzweig, while Walker played for Gold medalist Team USA. Cosgrove and Rosenzweig helped the Irish to a fifth-place finish in their first FIL World Cup competition.
SMITH ADDS SCORING PUNCH TO ATTACK
• One of the big surprises last season was the emergence of Haley Smith on attack. Smith finished the year with 33 goals and 5 assists as the third leading scorer for UMass. As a freshman in 2008, she tallied two goals and four assists in 18 games.
BIG SHOES TO FILL
• Although only losing three starters, all seniors, from last season's squad, Alexis Venechanos will need to find some players to fill the voids left by the key trio of Holly Drown, Meghan Reddy and Jackie Rosenzweig.
• Reddy and Drown were the second and fourth leading scorers on the team, respectively. Reddy notched 35 goals and 11 assists to go with a school-record 78 draw controls. Twice she had 12 draw controls in a game which is among the best in NCAA history. Drown had 30 goals and 5 assists along with 44 draw controls and 22 groundballs - second most on the team in both.
• Rosenzweig started every game of her career and was one of the best defensive players ever at UMass. She finished her career with 84 caused turnovers and 100 groundballs and was a first-team All-Atlantic 10 selection in 2009.
FLORENCE LOOKING TO BECOME A SUPER-SOPH
• As a freshman in 2009, Katie Florence established herself as one of the up-and-coming goalies in the country and one of the best in the Atlantic 10. She finished the year with an 11.43 goals against average and a .462 save percentage along with an 11-8-0 record. She started all 19 games playing nearly 1,200 minutes in cage.
VENECHANOS ERA KEEPS IMPROVING
• Head coach Alexis Venechanos' enters her fourth season at the helm of the UMass lacrosse program. Under her guidance, the Minutewomen have seen improvement each season. The Minutewomen were 8-9 in her inaugural campaign finishing 3-4 in the A-10 (5th Place). In 2008, UMass was 7-11 overall, but earned the fourth-seed into the A-10 Tournament with a 4-3 record reaching the Championship Game. Last year, a team that looked to be rebuilding with a large freshman class and needing to replace the bulk of its offense and defense, Venechanos guided the team through a tough non-conference slate to the A-10 Regular-Season title, the A-10 Tournament title, and the first NCAA Tournament berth in 25 years with an 11-8 overall record.
WHAT A SEASON 2009 WAS
• It was a magical finish to 2009 as the Minutewomen won eight of their final nine games to make the first NCAA Tournament since 1984. UMass tied a school record for wins in A-10 play (6-1) and posted the most overall wins (11) since 2003. With 204 goals scored, UMass set a new single-season team scoring record as well as a new team record for draw controls (258). The 269 points were also the second best mark in school history.
