CU Lacrosse Defeats Stetson 12-4 In Inaugural Game
Feb 14th
DELAND, Fla. – In its first game of its inaugural season, the University of Colorado lacrosse team started setting records early, grabbing a 12-4 win over Stetson here Thursday.
“Going into the game we were really excited,” CU head coach Ann Elliott said. “We had a really good walkthrough this morning. I knew the girls were going to come out with a lot of energy and excitement with it being our first game. We were really happy with the way they came out, not just the excitement and energy, but really the focus they had and the determination to really play together and stick to our game plan.”
That determination was evident from the beginning of the game to the closing minutes. Colorado edged Stetson in nearly every category. The Buffaloes outshot the Hatters 25 to 15, scooped up three more ground balls (15 to 12) and grabbed two more draw controls (10 to eight). The Buffs defense also stepped up, preventing the Hatters from scoring on any of their three free position shot attempts. (CU was four of seven from the 8 meter.)
In the program debut, Cali Castagnola led the Buffs with four goals off five shots. Johnna Fusco was the top point-getter, with six points off three goals and three assists. Maddie Hunt was strong on the defensive end of the field, causing three turnovers and grabbing two groundballs. In just under 53 minutes, goalie Paige Soenksen grabbed four saves and allowed just three goals.
With one game under their belt, the Buffs are 1-0, while Stetson falls to 0-3 on the season with previous losses to No. 3 Syracuse and Mountain Pacific Sports Federation competitor Oregon.
The Buffs attacked early and often, with Castagnola earning CU’s first ever hat trick by the first period’s midpoint to give the squad a solid 3-0 lead.
“Cali stepped up for sure early in the game,” Elliott said. “I think they were all a result of our offense playing together, working hard together to give each other opportunities, and Cali was able to take advantage early on. I think it really set the tone for the team. It was exciting for us.”
Grabbing an assist on the Buffs’ third goal, Katie Macleay was at it again, scoring exactly five minutes later to push CU’s lead to 4-0. Johnna Fusco continued to push the lead in the final eight minutes before the break, first scoring off a free position shot. Just 15 seconds before halftime, Fusco scored again to give the Buffs a 6-0 lead by halftime.
Macleay’s pace wasn’t slowed by the intermission, getting her third point of the game less than two minutes into the second half.
Colorado had built a dominating 7-0 lead, but Stetson aimed to climb back. During a nearly 20 minute span, CU and Stetson traded off on four goals. The Hatter duo of Mary Kate Sullivan and Samantha Akl proved to be a strong force. Akl first assisted O’Sullivan six minutes into the half. Castagnola, assisted by Fusco, responded, but Stetson was ready for another. Akl assisted Lindsay Summers this time, cutting the Buffs’ lead to six once more.
Amanda Salvadore and Marie Moore both scored their first goals as Buffs with under 10 minutes remaining. O’Sullivan and Akl combined once more, and Stetson’s Julia Lozano scored the Hatter’s final goal, but it wouldn’t be enough to diminish the Buffs’ lead and slow their tempo. Elliott said she was impressed with the way her team handled the Hatter attack and how they took back control on the offensive end.
In the final four minutes, Macleay and Fusco became the second and third Buffs to join the young hat trick club, putting the game away at 12-4.
The Buffs’ first road trip continues against another Florida team, Jacksonville. CU faces the Dolphins, who have received votes in both the IWLCA preseason and first week polls, on Saturday, Feb. 15 at 10 a.m. MT.
“Jacksonville – they’re a great team,” Elliott said. “They play hard all over the field: offensively, defensively and in transition. It’s going to be a great challenge for us, and we’re really excited for the opportunity to play them and see what we can do.”
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MARLEE HORN | Assistant Sports Information Director
Buffs Falter In Second Half, Bruins Roll To 92-74 Win
Feb 14th
By B.G. Brooks, CUBuffs.com Contributing Editor
LOS ANGELES – Colorado battled gallantly for a half and a little bit beyond here Thursday night at Pauley Pavilion. But the second 20 minutes were all UCLA as the Bruins overran the Buffaloes 92-74, halting CU’s Pac-12 Conference winning streak at three.
Up 40-36 at halftime, CU was victimized by UCLA’s 3-point shooting in a dizzying 56-point Bruins second half. UCLA (19-5, 8-3) won for the fifth time in six games while CU (18-7, 7-5) lost for a fifth consecutive time to the Bruins and remains winless (0-6) in L.A.
“We weren’t good enough in the second half, obviously,” said CU coach Tad Boyle. “We knew at halftime that we were in the game because we were making shots – we were pretty efficient offensively. Our defense wasn’t good enough all night long, and you guys know it’s about defensive rebounding. When we hit those numbers that we did against Washington the results take care of themselves.”
But in most categories Thursday night, the Buffs lost the numbers game to the Bruins. UCLA finished the game 11-of-22 from beyond the arc, including 8-of-12 (66.7 percent) in the second half. The Bruins shot 56.5 percent from the field for the night while the Buffs finished at 45.9 percent. UCLA also won the board battle by 10 (37-27) and converted 12 CU turnovers into 15 points.
“UCLA just shot the lights out in the second half,” Boyle said. “They executed, we didn’t get stops when we had to, they shot the three-ball well, and our defense wasn’t good enough and we got out-rebounded by 10. UCLA is a good team, and they pose some matchup problems for us . . . but It hurts when you know you played good enough for 20 minutes to win a game, but we have to play for 40. Some of that credit goes towards UCLA, they’re a good basketball team and they played well tonight and they made shots.”
CU had four players in double figures, led by Josh Scott’s 20, while Askia Booker added 16 points and a career-high 12 assists for his first career double-double. Xavier Johnson contributed 14 points and nine rebounds, and Xavier Talton scored 10 points.
Five Bruins, meanwhile, reached double figures, topped by Kyle Anderson’s 22 points and a career-high 11 assists. Jordan Adams (17), Bryce Alford (14), Travis Wear (13) and Norman Powell (10) were UCLA’s other double-digit scorers – but Alford’s second-half productivity separated him from that quartet.
The son of UCLA coach Steve Alford hit 4-of-5 3-pointers – all in the second half – as the Bruins took control in the game’s final 20 minutes. Bryce Alford entered the game having hit only three treys in his last seven games – and all of those came two games ago at Oregon State.
Bryce Alford, the son of UCLA coach Steve Alford (Both shown here) hit 4-of-5 3-pointers – all in the second half of the game
“Kyle Anderson is terrific, and boy Bryce Alford in the second half . . . he was on fire and feeling it,” Boyle said. “That’s what happens, he was oh-fer in our building, I think 0-for-7, but he’s a good shooter, we know he’s a good shooter and you let a good shooter get hot and you’ve got problems. It’s disheartening because this was a winnable game. But I like the way our guys fought, I liked our competitive spirit.”
For a second straight game, the Buffs were without redshirt freshman forward Wesley Gordon, who is still recuperating from ankle/knee injuries suffered when he slipped on ice last weekend. Also absent was true freshman Tre’Shaun Fletcher, who made the trip to L.A. but is not yet fully recovered from the knee injury he suffered at Washington last month.
UCLA, which last month handed CU its only home loss to date (69-56), opened by hitting six of its first nine shots and raced to a 13-5 lead. But the Buffs didn’t crumble; they responded with some of their crispest ball movement to date, launching a 25-7 run that put them up 28-10 with 8:27 left in the half.
During that surge, CU hit two of its four first-half 3-pointers – one by Johnson, the other by Booker, who finished with nine first-half points. The Buffs’ other pair of first-half treys were by Talton, who tied his seasonal high output for a half with those two. CU had made one 3-pointer in the first half of three of its previous Pac-12 road games. The Buffs finished with seven treys – their most in a road game this season.
The Buffs pushed their first-half lead as high as 12 (33-21) before the Bruins buckled down. A 13-3 run brought UCLA to within 36-34, but CU got a buzzer-beating dunk by Scott on an assist by Booker to take a 40-36 lead at intermission. Scott finished the half with 13 points as CU shot 55.2 percent from the field – its second-best mark in a league game this season – with a first-half high 10 assists (17 for the night).
With 48 first-half points in last Sunday’s 91-65 blowout of Washington, CU’s 40 points in the first 20 minutes Thursday night marked the Buffs’ most productive first halves of Pac-12 play this season. But the second half awaited, and no one believed the Bruins would roll over.
They didn’t. After tying the score at 45-45 on a basket by Adams and at 48-48 on 3-pointer by Travis Wear, they took their first lead since 15-13 on a conventional three-point play by Adams, going up 55-53 with 13:12 to play.
Then back-to-back 3-pointers by Bryce Alford shot UCLA ahead 61-53 – and after that 9-0 run, CU looked to be reeling. Alford made sure of it, draining his third trey of the second half’s first 10 minutes and sending the Bruins back to the first of two double-digit leads (68-58).
When CU crept to within seven points, Alford hit his fourth triple and UCLA regained its 10-point advantage (76-66). A three-point play by Scott brought the Buffs to within 76-71 with 6:35 remaining but they came no closer. The Bruins stretched their lead to 18 (92-74) in the final 2 minutes.
CU plays at USC on Sunday (6 p.m. MT, ESPNU) hoping to salvage a split on its West Coast trip, and Boyle underscored that game’s importance. “It is, no question (important),” he said. “We have to have a short memory but I don’t want us to put this behind us and forget about it, we’re going to learn from it, we’re going to watch some film, but we have got to bounce back.
“And again, our guys fight and they scratch and they claw and I thought we did tonight. We didn’t get beat because of lack of effort, we got beat because we played a good basketball team that executed better than we did. But, it’s important that we bounce back. USC is hungry right now and they are playing better than their record. We’re going to run into a better team than we saw in the Coors Events Center a few weeks ago and we know that.”
GAME NOTES
• Colorado lost for the fifth straight time to UCLA and remains winless in Los Angeles (0-6); CU is also 0-4 to UCLA in Pac-12 play; Bruins lead the series, 8-1.
• CU drops to 1-4 in Pac-12 Conference road games.
• CU’s 18-7 record is still the best record for CU after 25 games in four seasons under Boyle.
• Only CU’s fourth loss in 30 games when having 15 or more assists in a game under Boyle. Against UCLA: 17.
• First half shot second best FG% of the first half (55.2) … for the game (45.9FG% highest of 5 Pac-12 road games).
• Seven made 3-pointers, most made on the road this season.
Askia Booker
• First career double-double (16 points, 12 assists).
• First player since Marcus Hall to have at least 10 assists in a game (March 13, 2008 vs. Baylor).
• Third game this season where he had at least 7 or more assists in a game.
• Seventh player in school history with at least 12+ assists in a game. Last CU player with that many Joes Winston, 15 vs. Coppin State, Jan. 2 2001.
Xavier Johnson
• Scored 10+ points for the seventh straight game, against UCLA 14 points.
• Fourth straight game with 9+ rebounds.
Josh Scott
• Scored a season-high 13 points in the first half, 20 for the game.
• Sixth game this season with 20 or more points in a game (8th career).
• 11th time he has led CU in scoring this season (16th career).
Xavier Talton
• Made a pair of treys in the first half (tying season high for the first half).
• Has made 10 treys combined over the last four games.
• Scored his third game of the season with 10+ points (UCLA).
Dustin Thomas
• Made his second career start (four points, two steals).
• Season-best two steals.
Andrew Green | Assistant Director Sports Information
Time to End the Cheney/Halliburton Loophole
Feb 14th
Wednesday, 12 February 2014 14:38
By The Daily Take, The Thom Hartmann Program | Op-Ed
Reprinted by Truthout.org
By The Daily Take, The Thom Hartmann Program | Op-Ed
Reprinted by Truthout.org
We live in a fracked up country, but thanks to Dick Cheney, there’s pretty much nothing we can do about it.
Over the past decade, the extraction of natural gas through a technique known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has emerged as one of the fossil fuel industry’s biggest money makers.
In fact, according to Bloomberg, fracking was the biggest reason American oil output hit a 25-year high in 2013.
The boom in fracking is, quite literally, hitting close to home.
A recent Wall Street Journal report looked at 11 of the country’s biggest energy-producing states and found that – “At least 15.3 million Americans lived within a mile of a well that has been drilled since 2000. That is more people than live in Michigan or New York City.”
That report also found that in Johnson County, Texas alone “…more than 3,900 wells dot the county and some 99.5% of its 150,000 residents live within a mile of a well.”
Cheney face has become lopsided from being an inveterate liar
Like many places across the U.S., Johnson County is now basically one big drill site.
Not surprisingly, the fossil fuel industry is pushing fracking hard. Big oil has even found a friend in President Obama, who touted natural gas as a “bridge fuel” in his most recent State of the Union address.
All due respect to the president, but fracking is not safe. Numerous studies have shown that it contaminates drinking water, threatens public health, and, in some cases, even causes earthquakes.
If any industry in the country needs regulation it’s the fracking industry, but thanks in large part to Dick Cheney, it’s exempt from having to follow most important environmental laws on the books.
Let me explain: Back in 2005. President – excuse me Vice President – Cheney was hard at work doing what he did best: using his power as the second most powerful man in the country to protect his cronies in the oil business.
His former employer, Halliburton, wanted to get more involved in the emerging American fracking industry, but it faced a potential major roadblock in the form of a 1974 law called the Safe Water Drinking Act.
That act, signed into law by Republican President Gerald Ford, requires the Environmental Protection Agency to keep toxic chemicals from getting into Americans’ drinking water.
Cheney didn’t care about public safety but he did care about Halliburton’s bottom-line – after all, he was a big Halliburton stockholder when he became vice president – and so he joined the lobbying efforts to get Congress to carve out an exemption for fracking in the Safe Water Drinking Act.
Thanks to that carve-out – let’s call it the “Halliburton loophole” – the EPA can’t regulate fracking poisons even when they get into our water supply.
But Cheney and his oil industry buddies didn’t stop there. In 2005, Congress also gave the natural gas industry an exemption from having to write up reports on its activities under the National Environmental Policy Act and expanded its exemption from having to follow Clean Water Act regulations on what kind of chemicals it can dump in storm water runoff.
Coupled with existing exemptions to a variety of pollution laws like the Clean Air Act, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the Superfund Act, and the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, the 2005 carve-outs gave the fracking industry seven total exemptions from important environmental regulations.
Nine years later, it’s clear that Dick Cheney and Halliburton got what they wanted. Free from having to follow even the most basic environmental regulations, the fracking industry is bigger than ever and will likely continue to grow well into the future.
While other countries like France and Bulgaria with rich reserves of natural gas have banned fracking altogether, we here in the United States have done the exact opposite.
Thanks to Dick Cheney’s Halliburton loophole, anyone who lives near a fracking site is one of the oil industry’s guinea pigs in a giant multi-decade fracking experiment.
But we don’t have to sit back and take it while big gas pollutes our water, our bodies, and our environment.
We need to take action now to close the Halliburton loophole and all the rest of the fracking industry’s exemptions before more people’s water supplies and lives are ruined.
Call your local member of Congress right now and tell them that it’s time to say goodbye to the Bush years once and for all and close the Halliburton loopholes.
This article was first published on Truthout and any reprint or reproduction on any other website must acknowledge Truthout as the original site of publication.
