The trickle-down surge of lacrosse success in Colorado is no coincidence.
Draw in your head a kind of flow chart that connects:
1) The Colorado Mammoth, defending National Lacrosse League champion, and 2) the Denver Outlaws, Major League Lacrosse divisional champions last season, to 3) the University of Denver Pioneers, the Great Western Lacrosse League titlists and an NCAA Tournament team last year, to 4) the area high school teams, which regularly feed players to Division I teams among the top 25.
The success at each level of Colorado lacrosse is not random. Everything is connected.
Take, for example, the seventh annual Pioneer Face-off Classic this weekend at Peter Barton Stadium on the DU campus.
Denver, ranked No. 20 this week in Inside Lacrosse after the Pioneers dropped road games last week to highly regarded North Carolina and Duke, will go against Villanova on Saturday at 1:30 p.m. and No. 19 Maryland-Baltimore County on Sunday at 1:30 p.m.
And Air Force, which also received a vote in the Inside Lacrosse poll, will match up with UMBC on Saturday at 11 a.m. and Villanova on Sunday at 11 a.m.
The tournament cannot escape the area connection.
Denver’s roster has Front Range players throughout, including captains Ryan Zordani, a graduate of Littleton’s Heritage High School, and David Hahn, of Aurora’s Grandview. Brett Koll, of Fort Collins, leads the team in scoring.
Air Force has Will Meister, a Kent Denver grad, on attack. Villanova has Eric Bloom, formerly of Regis High School, and Eric Webber, of Mullen. And UMBC has Colin Bolling, a freshman from Cherry Creek.
Long gone, apparently, are the days when all lacrosse players came from East Coast hot spots.
WEAK IN REVIEW
Ricardo Patton’s final home game as Colorado coach – Saturday morning against Nebraska – can’t come soon enough. How bad has it become? Missouri on Wednesday gave Marcus Watkins, a rarely used backup center, his first start of the season in a ceremonial gesture on Mizzou’s Senior Night. Watkins then scored a career-high 16 points and grabbed a game-high six rebounds as the Tigers rolled over the Buffaloes.
WHAT WE’D LIKE TO SEE
Hopefully the Avs’ karma will improve some after the team traded away Brad May to Anaheim this week for a minor-league goaltender. It was long overdue, even though general manager Francois Giguere still won’t admit the Avs’ signing of May two seasons ago was a low blow, not long after May called for a “bounty” on the Avs’ Steve Moore that led to Moore having his neck broken.
THE COUCH
ON: The Colorado Crush return for a fifth Arena Football League season in Denver when it hosts the Grand Rapids Rampage on Sunday at 1 p.m. at the Pepsi Center. The matchup – airing tape-delayed at 7:30 p.m. Sunday on FSN – will be the first of three games in 12 days for the Crush, a tough schedule to start the season. But quarterback John Dutton and receiver Damian Harrell, the reigning AFL offensive player of the year, return to the lineup. And the Crush added former Arvada West and Northern Colorado standout Brad Pyatt, who played in the NFL, to its roster for local flavor. The Crush is 24-12 over the past two seasons, so expectations are high.
OFF: Sure, you could break out the bike for the 14-mile Frostbite Time Trial in Fort Collins at 10 a.m. Saturday (americancycling.org). But why not take advantage of the snow while it’s still around? Try Beaver Creek’s Snowshoe Adventure Series No. 4 on Saturday. The day features the East West 5K Quest, the 10K competitive run, a kids 1K and a dash for cash. As a capper, the Snowshoe Shuffle at McAvoy Park, expected to draw more than 1,000 racers, will conclude the four-race series that started in December. Check bcsnowshoe.com for more info.
AROUND THE STATE
The Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference Tournament, which tipped off Wednesday with eight first-round games, is a marathon, three-day affair. And unlike recent seasons, the first round produced no upsets in either the men’s or women’s bracket. So when the tournament continues Saturday at the State Fair Events Center in Pueblo with the semifinal rounds, something will have to give. In the women’s bracket, top-seeded Regis, a 102-64 winner over Mesa State, will face No. 4 Nebraska-Kearney at noon, and No. 3 Metro State will take on No. 2 CSU-Pueblo at 4 p.m. On the men’s side, No. 1 Metro State will have to get by No. 4 Fort Lewis at 2 p.m., and No. 3 Nebraska-Kearney will have to dispose of No. 2 Adams State at 6 p.m. to form the expected title game between the Roadrunners and Lopers. Championship games will be played Sunday at noon and 2 p.m.
