The men's lacrosse team headed to San Diego on Friday as part of the West Coast Lacrosse League's Final Four championship, held at UC San Diego. An early loss against Arizona State University, the nation's sixth-ranked team, left the team watching instead of competing.
"We didn't play to our potential," said goal keeper Austin Raab. "But we had a good showing against a good team, so it wasn't horrible in the end."
The Wildcats went into Saturday's game against the Sun Devils knowing Arizona State had a powerful roster of offensive players who knew how to capitalize on an opponent's mistakes.
"Well, they're the No. 6 team in the country, so we weren't supposed to be close," head coach Paul Rocchio said. "But there are only a handful of teams who have been able to control them, and now we're one of them."
Teams included in that group were UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara and Cal Poly Pomona, he said.
Chico went down early in the first quarter 2-0 and played catch-up the rest of the game. Joe Vila scored twice to keep the Wildcats close to their opponents, but an 8-4 lead by Arizona State proved too much to recover from, and the Sun Devils won 11-8.
"They had five guys with big numbers," Rocchio said. "Vila was a huge help in this game because he played well on the defensive side as well as the offensive side."
The team will now wait to see if it makes the top 15 rankings and moves into the Men's Collegiate Lacrosse Association national tournament.
"A lot of people seemed to think that we didn't deserve to be there," Vila said. "But we proved them wrong by staying close to Arizona. Honestly, I don't know if we'll make the MCLA tourney - so, if not, our season is done."
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