The Oregon lacrosse team has entered the 2006 season’s home stretch. Oregon will return to Pape Field after a two-week hiatus for the final game of the regular season. The Ducks will face California in a crucial conference match Sunday at 11 a.m.
Sunday’s match will be key for both Mountain Pacific Sports Federation teams to determine how the MPSF Championship tournament will be seeded. Oregon and Cal are battling for the third seed in the tournament, held at Pape Field on May 5-7. If Oregon defeats Cal, Stanford will take the No. 1 seed, Denver No. 2, Oregon No. 3, Cal No.4, St. Mary’s No. 5 and UC Davis No. 6.
Oregon’s last home game was a victory against Stony Brook on April 11. The remainder of April was spent on the road in Massachusetts. The Ducks added another win to their record, defeating Holy Cross College 13-12 on April 13. On April 15, the two-game winning streak ended with a challenging match against top-ranked Boston University. The Ducks were defeated 19-8, leaving Oregon with an 8-7 overall record, 2-2 in the MPSF. Cal is currently 6-9 overall and 3-1 in the MPSF. Cal is coming into Sunday’s match with a recent win against fellow MPSF team UC Davis 12-9 last Saturday.
Taking a glimpse back at last season’s stats, Oregon has continued to grow into a strong offensive team. With the game against Cal still to be played, the Ducks have already surpassed last season’s total points. As of April 15, the Ducks have scored 179 goals, 92 assists and 271 points from the 15 games. However, in the 2005 season, a total of 17 games, Oregon accumulated 183 goals, 86 assists and 269 points. Cal has scored only 136 goals, 45 assists and 181 points so far.
As Oregon prepares to close out the season and fight to earn the third seed for the conference tournament, redshirt freshman attacker Alison
Leiner has stood out as one of the Ducks individual leaders. She has scored 48 points with 19 from goals and 29 from assists. Leiner also leads Oregon with 30 draw controls. Freshman attacker Ilsa van den Berg has
40 points with 30 from goals and 10 from assists. On the defensive end, redshirt freshman goalkeeper Anna Poponyak racked up 122 saves in the net and has started in all 15 matches.
This weekend’s game will be the first-ever Oregon Lacrosse game to be covered live on Comcast 14 as a part of the Oregon Sports Network. The game will also be rebroadcast on May 1 at 7 p.m.