A crowd of 1,210 fans braved poor weather Saturday to see the University of Denver men’s lacrosse team defeat Air Force 10-9 in overtime and celebrate the official opening of the Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium.
The No. 15 Pioneers (9-4, 4-0) clinched a share of the Great Western Lacrosse League championship with the win against the Falcons (4-8, 1-4).
Freshman Brett Koll scored the winner 36 seconds into overtime – his second goal of the afternoon. Attacker Matt Brown led all Denver scorers with three goals.
DU can gain an automatic berth to the 16-team NCAA Tournament with a win in its final regular-season game in Fairfield, Conn., on Saturday.
“It’s kind of hard to believe. We’ve come a long way in seven years,” said DU coach Jamie Munro, who was hired in 1998 – a year before the program became Division I.
The $5.9 million Barton Stadium is the only dedicated NCAA lacrosse facility in the country. It seats 2,000 and features plush locker rooms for the DU men’s and women’s teams, a large two-way press box that also serves the soccer field and a pavilion/conference tower that complements the Ritchie Center with red bricks and a gold roof.
Most of the construction costs were provided by Laura Barton, widow of cable TV pioneer Peter Barton, who died in 2002 of cancer.
“We are so honored to be part of the growth of the program,” Laura Barton said.
Peter Barton, the founding president of Liberty Media Corp. who was an adjunct professor at DU’s Daniels College of Business and developed the school’s Privacy Foundation, coached his daughter and two sons in lacrosse and followed the DU program closely. He shared the dream of a lacrosse-only facility with DU chancellor Dan Ritchie.
“What a joy this is and a dream come true,” Ritchie said. “The program is 40 years old this year, and I know there were folks 40 years ago who wanted to see this happen.
“We’re going to teach those folks east of the Mississippi how to play lacrosse.”
Munro said Barton Stadium, which broke ground last summer, would be “huge” for recruiting.
“It’s harder to sell the model on paper than actually walk a kid into a stadium that is going to make him feel like a pro athlete,” he said.
“It’s just another one of the school’s great selling points. We have an amazing campus, a really good private school with phenomenal Division I athletics in one of the greatest cities in the world.”
Brown, a senior from Burnaby, British Columbia, said, “The stadium is going to do wonders for this program.
“It’s going to bring in a lot more recruits,” he added. “It’s unreal. I’d just like to thank Mrs. Barton for what she’s done for us.”
Mike Chambers can be reached at 303-820-5453 or mchambers@denverpost.com.
