HAMILTON, N.Y. (2/3/2010) – For the second consecutive season, the Colgate women’s lacrosse team has been chosen as the conference favorite, as the Patriot League released its 2010 preseason poll, Wednesday.
The Raiders, who will be out to win their third consecutive league title, received seven first place votes to outdistance Lehigh and Navy by seven points for the top spot. Colgate earned 66 points in the voting, while the Mountain Hawks and the Midshipmen finished in a dead heat for second with 59 points. Bucknell (40), Holy Cross (30), American (28), and Lafayette (12) rounded out the voting.
“It is exciting to be chosen by our league coaches and women’s sports information lacrosse contacts to be preseason number one in the Patriot League,” said Colgate head coach Heather Young, who enters her fourth year at the helm of the program. “This really says a lot about our team’s previous accomplishments.
The Patriot League is a very challenging and competitive conference,” continued Young, the 2009 PL Coach of the Year. “Each and every game this season will be a fight to try to stay on top. We have a young group that is willing and ready to try to maintain our number one ranking all season.”
Colgate, which finished the 2009 campaign with a school record 14-5 overall mark, downed Navy 17-4 in the league title game to advance to its’ fourth-ever NCAA Championship. Despite falling to second ranked Maryland 20-4 in the opening round, the Raiders possessed one of the stingiest defensive units in the land, allowing only 8.79 goals per outing, which ranked sixth overall.
Colgate’s 2010 squad consists of 13 returning letterwinners including three first team all-league performers from a year ago in senior Meghan Lawler (Liverpool, N.Y.), junior Colleen Bubnack (Syracuse, N.Y.) and sophomore Courtney Miller (Chappaqua, N.Y.). The trio accounted for 108 goals or 42 percent of the goals scored and 170 points, or 45 percent of the total points.
Christina Roa (Potomac, Md.), a part-time starter in net for the Raiders in 2009, will take over as the full-time starter. Last year, the sophomore provided a spark in net and went 5-1 with a 7.40 goals against average.
The loss of 13 letterwinners including eight starters should make things interesting as 10 newcomers will battle other returning seasoned veterans for starting positions.
Colgate’s 2010 slate is very demanding as it will play six of its first seven games away from Tyler’s Field. The Raiders will open February 13 at Stony Brook before taking on nationally ranked Syracuse on February 19. After traveling to Penn State on February 28, Colgate will host its home opener, March 3 as archrival Cornell comes to town.