Team History
The inaugural Florida Gators team played teams from fellow ALC member schools Johns Hopkins, Ohio State, Penn State, Vanderbilt and defending NCAA champion Northwestern, as well as non-conference opponents Cornell, Georgetown, Navy and New Hampshire during the spring 2010 semester. The Gators played their first regular season game on February 20, 2010, posting a 16–6 victory over the Jacksonville Dolphins. The young Gators finished their inaugural season 10–8, including ALC wins over Penn State and John Hopkins, and were ranked eighteenth in the country in LaxPower's final power ratings.
In only their second season of NCAA competition, the sixth-ranked Gators clinched their first ALC regular season championship by defeating the defending conference champion and second-ranked Northwestern Wildcats 13–11 on April 14, 2011. The Gators completed a perfect 5–0 ALC season three days later when they defeated the seventeenth-ranked Vanderbilt Commodores 8–7. The Northwestern Wildcats edged the Gators 10–9 in the ALC Tournament final, after the Gators defeated the Ohio State Buckeyes 16–13 in the semifinal round. The Gators received their first NCAA Tournament bid, seeded fourth in the sixteen-team field on May 9, 2011, and defeated the Stanford Cardinal women's team 13–11 in the first round of the NCAA tournament five days later. The young Gators eventually fell to the veteran Duke Blue Devils 13—9 in the quarterfinals ("Elite Eight") of the 2011 NCAA Tournament, finishing their second season with an overall win-loss record of 16–4.
In advance of the spring 2012 season, Lacrosse Magazine ranked the Gators as the preseason No. 2 team in the nation. After defeating the No. 1 ranked Northwestern Wildcats, the No. 5 Gators finished the 2012 regular season with a 15–2 overall win-loss record and a perfect 5–0 in the ALC, winning their second regular season conference championship in only their third year of play. The No. 3 Gators made it a clean sweep by trouncing the No. 1 Wildcats 14–7 in the final of the ALC Tournament, and winning their first-ever conference tournament title. Afterward, the Gators were selected as the No. 1 seed in the 2012 NCAA Division I Women's Lacrosse Tournament. The Gators defeated the Albany Great Danes 6–4 in the opening round of the tournament, and overwhelmed the Penn State Nittany Lions 15–2 in the quarterfinals. After leading 12–5 in the tournament semifinal, the team's season ended with a 14–13 sudden-death loss to the Syracuse Orange in double-overtime.
Read more about this topic: Florida Gators Women's Lacrosse
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“I doubt if men ever made a trade of heroism. In the days of Achilles, even, they delighted in big barns, and perchance in pressed hay, and he who possessed the most valuable team was the best fellow.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is the true office of history to represent the events themselves, together with the counsels, and to leave the observations and conclusions thereupon to the liberty and faculty of every man’s judgement.”
—Francis Bacon (1561–1626)