Lacrosse coach angry following loss
The frustration of being on the losing end of a one-sided score, the hot sun and several questionable calls by the referees must have gotten to USU lacrosse Head Coach Matt Polityka.
In the third quarter of what would be a 15-3 loss to University of California Davis, Polityka was letting a referee have it and received multiple warnings before a flag was finally thrown and USU was penalized.
“The refs played their own game, I guess,” Polityka said. “I don’t know. You can’t ever blame a game like that on the refs but the calls were not going our way by any means.”
In his post-game interview, Polityka tried to be complimentary of the three-man officiating crew but couldn’t resist blasting them one more time in the same breath.
“I got a flag. I got a penalty myself,” he said. “I didn’t even swear. They called a slash penalty when they slashed us too all the time! They didn’t call it even the whole time, but they did their best.”
The Aggies were down 14-0 in the final quarter, but Polityka gave his young squad a fiery speech, urging them to avoid being shut out.
His players responded, and USU was able to save some face with three goals by freshmen Kyle Shaw, Cody Nelson and Lance Weeks.
“It’s always good for a young team like ours to score goals against a deep team like UC Davis,” Polityka said, referring to the obvious disparity in the number of athletes playing for the visitors.
Shaw said he was attacking the UC Davis goaltender’s weakness by shooting low.
“(Goalies) always have a weakness on the ground, bouncing them and putting them right there in the corner,” Shaw said.
Freshman goalie Jackson Raymond made several excellent saves to prevent the score from getting any more out of hand than it already was. He faced a high number of shots from the other Aggies as UC Davis was able to maintain possession in USU’s end for extended periods.
When asked what if there was any lesson to be learned from the loss, Shaw replied, “Just lots of learning experiences. Things to improve on are trying to get out there and support each other.”
-graham@cc.usu.edu