Round Rock, Texas — With just a couple of exceptions, the higher seeds mostly ruled the day in Wednesday’s first round of play at the 2022 USA Lacrosse WCLA Championship Tournament.
The top two seeds, No. 1 Boston College Club and No. 2 Georgia, both advanced with relatively easy victories. BC’s Meghan Chase scored six goals and Katie Duttenhofer added five to keep the Eagles (13-0) undefeated with a 17-7 win over No. 16 Delaware Club.
Meanwhile, Georgia (19-0) rolled past No. 15 seed Washington, 18-7, with nine different players scoring goals, led by three from Savannah Sabol.
“We’ve had lots of different goal scorers throughout the season,” said UGA coach Maddie Katz. “We knew this team could be special after finishing undefeated in California at the start of the season. We’ve had high expectations all season and everyone has really stepped up.”
The only real upset of the day belonged to No. 12 Michigan Club, which ran its Texas winning streak to five games. The last time the WCLA Championship came to the Round Rock Sports Complex, in 2018, the Wolverines won four games in four days to capture their second national championship.
On Wednesday, the Wolverines picked up where they left off four years ago, upsetting No. 5 seed Florida Club, 10-9, with Casey Reichwein scoring the game-winning goal with 9:37 remaining. But any carryover is strictly coincidental according to UM coach Dave McKinnon.
“Almost 80-percent of this year’s team is new,” he said, “but getting a close game like this under our belt isn’t a bad thing. We learned today that this is a team that can persevere.”
Anna Park led Michigan with three goals while her sister, goalie Sophie Park, finished with 15 saves.
The Wolverines will get a chance Thursday to further extend their Texas run with a matchup against No. 4 seed Virginia Tech Club, which dispatched 2019 champion Pittsburgh Club, 13-5. The Hokies built an 8-1 halftime lead and never trailed, with Wynston Archer and Maria Keener scoring four times each.
“We were very aggressive in our midfield transition today, and I thought we did a great job in controlling the 50-50 balls,” said Virginia Tech club president and defender Julia DeBrosse. “We’ve had a great season and we just want to keep it going.”