Provo, Utah- The Colorado State Rams and Brigham Young Cougars lacrosse rivalry challenges any rivalry in the nation for competitiveness and excitement of the game, and the match-up between the two schools on Friday evening lived up to the hype. Both teams came out fired up and put on an exciting show for the crowd in one of the biggest games of the year for each team, if not the biggest, with Brigham Young coming out the victor, 9-6.<!--more--> For the past several years, Brigham Young had the much better team and blew out the Rams in their games, but this year was much more evenly matched. If not for a few costly mistakes by the Rams, the score could have been much closer than three goals. "There were a few little things that I thought hurt us tonight,” reflected interim coach Alex Smith. “We threw some balls away in the middle of the field and had some turnovers. Those are correctable, though. I'm confident that we can build on this loss and move forward to Sunday." The Rams were able to score the first goal on the night after Matt Jui (Columbine HS; CO) slipped one past D.J. Sullivan, the BYU goalie, but BYU responded with three goals of their own to put them in a lead they would never relinquish. Each team scored another goal before the first period ended for a score of 4-3 in favor of BYU, but the second quarter belonged to the Cougars. They took advantage of opportunities presented by errant passes and dropped balls by the Rams to score three goals off of 12 shots to close out the half 7-3. Colorado State greatly reduced the amount of mistakes in the second half, and limited BYU to only two goals in the half. Alex Jacques (Bainbridge Island HS; WA) was a solid fixture in net for the Rams and made some big saves in the second half to help keep the game close. There were moments when it seemed like the Rams might make a comeback, but BYU’s defense played tough the entire game. They prevented Colorado State from taking advantage of offensive opportunities that could have made the game closer. "I would have liked to see us finish a couple of opportunities in the second half,” said Smith. “I felt like we controlled the action a little bit, but BYU's defense held strong. They did a good job of making it hard for us to score. That being said, I feel like we had a good look at this game." The Rams will look forward to their next opportunity to play BYU in the RMLC championship tournament, and possibly the MCLA championship tournament. In the meantime, the Rams will next play Utah on Sunday, March 21. This will be the last of their five game road trip, and a chance for the Rams to close out the trip on a high note against good Utah team.
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