The sports world was busy this past weekend, with plenty of intriguing NBA playoff matchups and several NCAA championship tournaments being played.
But for a few dozen UCLA students, the focus was on a few scorching-hot fields in Scottsdale, Ariz.
Those few dozen students comprise the women’s lacrosse club team, and those fields were the site of the U.S. Lacrosse Women’s Division Intercollegiate Associates National Championship.
Despite a shaky season, the team earned its third straight bid to the WDIA tournament after a solid third-place finish in the Western Women’s Lacrosse League Championships. But being a club team that receives little backing, both financially and in terms of on-campus promotion from the university, the Bruins played for themselves last weekend.
“We compete on a national level for ourselves and for each other,” senior attacker Sarah Strock said. “It’s a reality that we don’t get a lot of support from the school, so we don’t really expect that.”
At UCLA, junior captain Hayley Wheeler said, attending nationals has become a long-standing tradition.
The championship is a tournament featuring the top 16 club teams in the nearly 200-squad WDIA where winners advance for a chance at the national title, and losers enter a loser’s bracket ending in consolation matches.
“It was really exciting to go to the tournament this year,” Strock said. “Especially because we had a really roller-coaster season; it was really up and down.”
At last weekend’s tournament, the Bruins finished 11th overall.
For Strock’s fellow senior captain, midfielder Kellee Quane, these final games were especially meaningful.
“We pushed ourselves beyond points we thought we could and were positive at all times,” Quane said. “We tried to make it as fun as possible because we knew they were our last games.”
Pushing themselves to play through the triple-digit heat, the women capped off their season splitting their four matches.
Their title hopes, though, ended in the very first game of the tournament, where the Bruins fell late to Michigan. Unable to maintain the tie, the Bruins allowed four late-match, unanswered goals as the Wolverines took the match 17-13 Wednesday afternoon under the desert sun.
“We were always a step behind, and we were basically dying of the heat,” Quane said. “Not that those are excuses, but there were external factors that contributed (to our loss).”
Because of the excessive heat, referees called two mandatory water breaks each game, and both squads used all their timeouts in order to keep hydrated.
“There weren’t any teams that are used to playing in such hot, dry heat, so it didn’t feel like anyone had an advantage over anyone else,” Strock said.
With a number of stoppages due to the excessive heat, the game lasted nearly twice as long as normal lacrosse games. The game, coach Shanta Loecker said, became more of a contest of mind over matter.
“It was pretty rough,” Loecker said. “It was more like both teams struggling to get through (the heat).”
The Bruins were re-energized in the second round and easily handled West Chester 23-7.
“It was redemption from the first game,” Quane said. “We knew that we could play better and push ourselves more.”
In the third round against Georgia, both teams went the distance in overtime. With a number of questionable calls, which Bruin players and coaches claimed gave the Bulldogs an advantage, Georgia took the game 16-15.
With a number of seniors playing their last games as Bruins, the women’s lacrosse team buckled down to defeat Texas 18-12 in the consolation match.
With all their ups and downs, this season has been a long road for the Bruins, but they keep their hopes up.
Club sports are almost entirely funded by the individual players, so being on the women’s lacrosse team takes an exceptional commitment both monetarily and in terms of time. The team practices four days a week and has games Saturdays and Sundays.
“Because it’s such a huge commitment, people get so much more out of it as well,” Quane said.
Quane said that, through her dedication, she has a tight bond with her teammates.
“Going to practice can be pretty tedious,” Quane said, “but knowing that my best friends are there ““ we call each other family ““ makes it great.”