GAINESVILLE,
Fla. -- Kitty Cullen grew up in Baltimore and as a prep superstar smack in the
middle of lacrosse country she had her pick of some of the nation’s top
programs.
Yet
there she was, on a recruiting visit to the University of Florida in 2009 with
a handful of other top-ranked prospects from the Northeast, listening to what
some may have described as Fantasyland talk. Trust them, Gators officials said,
because those couple hundred acres of silviculture fields on the south side of
campus were about to be transformed into the finest collegiate lacrosse
facility in America.
Now,
they needed great players, like Cullen, to inhabit it.
She
vividly recalls the pitch from Athletic Director Jeremy Foley.
“He told
us we had to buy into the dream, to this work in progress,” Cullen said. “He
told us to trust them, that they were going to be one of the best teams in the
country.”
Cullen
nodded.
“We’ve
come a long way in three years,” she said.
Northwestern,
for example, would agree.
The
Wildcats have won the NCAA women’s lacrosse title six of the last seven years,
including the 2011 championship. The Gators, in just their third year of
existence, upset their American Lacrosse Conference rival each of the last two
regular seasons, including an 8-7 shocker April 21 at Evanston, Ill., that
marked the second loss by Northwestern on its home field since 2004.
Somewhere
out there, Northwestern and other lacrosse purebreds are probably thinking,
“How dare they do it so quickly.”
It’s the
south.
There’s
no tradition.
At the
state-of-the-art UF lacrosse complex, no one would blame Coach Amanda O’Leary
for smiling and saying, “Get used to it, people.”
“We
think we’ve established a tradition,” O’Leary said last week. “In our short
amount of time, we’ve won back-to-back [regular season] ALC championships. In
three years, that’s not too shabby.”
This week, the Florida program will take a
few more hacks at the tradition tree when the Gators play host to their first
ALC Tournament at Donald R. Dizney Stadium. UF (15-2, 5-0), which vaulted to
No. 4 with that historic win at Northwestern, locked up the No. 1 seed in the
tournament -- and bye into the semifinals -- and will face the winner of
Thursday’s quarterfinal game between Ohio State (10-5, 1-4) and Vanderbilt
(8-6, 1-4) on Friday. OSU and Vandy were ranked 12th and 19th last week,
respectively.
Game
time is 7 p.m.
“We
think we’re even better in front of our home fans, and now we get to play the
[conference] tournament here,” said Cullen, a junior and a standout attacker.
“It’s exciting how it’s all come together.”
And
there’s still room for growth. Lots of it.
By
defeating Northwestern on the road, the Gators announced themselves as a
national championship contender. Now, they’ll try to use the ALC Tournament as
a affirmation. UF already has looked the part of a team that can win the whole
thing; now it has to act the part.
When
Florida defeated NU last year it was an epic milestone for O’Leary and her
fledgling program, and the Gators celebrated as such.
“We were
at home,” Cullen said. “It was crazy.”
Three
weeks later, top-seeded Florida met Northwestern in the championship game of
the ALC Tournament at Vandy, with the Wildcats exacting revenge in the rematch
by handing the Gators a heartbreaking 10-9 defeat.
At that
moment, that big win earlier in the season suddenly didn’t mean as much.
“If we
play them again this year, we’ll know how to respond,” said Emily Dohony, a
junior defender from Parkton, Md. “We’ll know the last game is over.”
The next
phase -- and the next big step forward -- of Florida lacrosse may be just
beginning.
UF 2012
is a much deeper team than a year ago, thanks to an infusion of talented
newcomers, such as junior attacker Gabi Wiegand, a transfer from the University
of Richmond, and freshmen midfielders Nora Barry and Shannon Gilroy. Weigland
leads the Gators with 45 goals, trailing only junior Ashley Bruns (61) and
Cullen (59) in total points with 58.
“They
came in and have really made a mark on our program,” O’Leary said. “We’re a
pretty veteran team -- most of this group had played together for two years --
but for them to come in and break into the starting lineup says something about
their character and their work ethic.”
Now, it’s
time for the Gators, collectively, to try and make a statement, if they dare.
Which
they do.
“There is no ceiling here,” Dohony said.
“Anything is possible.”
