The Gators know they are on the cusp of making school history and are ready to take on the challenge.
No. 1 seed Florida (18-2) will be facing Penn State (12-6) in the NCAA women’s lacrosse quarterfinals as the team looks to earn a spot in the Final Four for the first time in program history this Saturday at 12:30pm.
“Going to the Final Four has been a goal for us since the beginning,” junior midfielder Brittany Dashiell said. “I think right now we’re just concentrating on our Penn State game and making sure we win that game to get to the Final Four ... we’re excited to play on Saturday.”
UF fell short last year when they took on No. 5 seed Duke in the Quarterfinals and lost 13-9.
Junior attacker Ashley Bruns felt winning a national title was an attainable goal last season and expressed disappointment that the team fell short of its ultimate goal.
“I feel like last year we did have high expectations and we accomplished a lot,” Bruns said. “But as our program’s growing we have all these great new additions. Last year I feel like we could have done it, but there was some things that we need to learn and grow more, so this year is a really great opportunity for us.”
For Florida, this matchup is a familiar one. The Gators hosted the Nittany Lions on April 1, and came out on top with a 20-11 win, marking the third consecutive year that they have defeated their conference foe.
Junior goalie Mikey Meagher got the win for Florida that day, allowing just nine goals in 47-plus minutes in the net.
Although the team has an idea of what to expect from its opponent, Meagher said that both squads have evolved over the course of the season.
“I think at this point in the season we’re two different teams than when we played each other before,” Meagher said.
“They’ve grown; we’ve grown, so I think we’ll be looking for a very exciting game again against this team. They have a lot of threats offensively, defensively so it should be a pretty good matchup.”
