Westminster College gave the U lacrosse club more than it could handle Saturday as the Utes, an A-division team, succumbed to a 14-11 upset at the hands of B-division Westminster.
After soundly defeating UVSC 17-9 Friday, the Utes may have entered Saturday’s game against Westminster a bit overconfident, U captain Tom Fernandez said. With the highly anticipated match against top-ranked BYU slated for Thursday, Utah “looked past” Westminster to the BYU showdown, Fernandez said.
“We came out really flat,” the starting attackman said. “(Westminster) came out really pumped up.”
The lack of intensity cost the Utes dearly as they picked up their first defeat in their fourth game this year against Westminster.
“We undersold Westminster,” Fernandez said.
Westminster is led by former Ute head coach Mason Goodhand, who left Utah last year to help build a lacrosse program at the cross-town school.
A few key Ute players followed Goodhand to Westminster, giving the first-year team a “pretty solid” group to start with, Fernandez said.
But that’s no excuse for losing to a B-division school, he added.
With the BYU game looming only a few days away, the Utes have no time to sulk.
“We have to put this weekend behind us (and have) three of our best practices of our whole year (this week),” Fernandez said.
As far as injuries are concerned, it’s been a rocky year for Utah. Starter Clint English was sidelined by a shoulder injury during the UVSC game and fellow starter Ryan Watts is out with a collarbone injury.
The Utes and Cougars last met in a fall scrimmage, in which BYU hammered Utah 10-1.
Fernandez said the loss to Westminster didn’t ruin Utah’s chances of reaching its top goal for the season-qualifying for the national tournament.
Depending on how the Utes perform Thursday, they are either headed to Dallas to vie for the national championship or straight into the offseason.