AMHERST — When UMass lost to Colorado 11-7 on Feb. 17 in Florida, coach Angela McMahon said her team was far from fully formed.

That was the second game of the season and while the Minutewomen had talented players, they had yet to entirely discover how to play together.

That loss was part of a 1-3 start to the season. UMass (16-3) found itself and won 15 straight games heading into Friday’s NCAA Tournament first-round match with the Buffaloes (16-3) at 7 p.m. at Penn’s historic Franklin Field.

“I think we’re much better. We’ve had great players all season. We’re playing much better as a team on both sides of the ball,” McMahon said. “We’ve had more people stepping up instead of one or two people trying to make plays. We have a lot of depth. I love the way we’re playing right now.”

McMahon was impressed with her team’s intensity and focus in Tuesday’s practice despite taking final exams earlier in the day.

“Sometimes you think finals are going to make it hard to focus,” she said. “But sometimes I think we get more out of these practices because it’s a break and they can just focus on practice and not worry about whatever else is going on.”

Senior Callie Santos said the players were eager for Friday to arrive.

“We’re mentally and physically really ready for this weekend,” she said. “We’re eager for the opportunity to show we can make a run in the NCAA Tournament.”

Fellow senior Hannah Burnett agreed.

“I think we’ve really hit our stride,” she said. “Going off of that into NCAAs is really a benefit for us.”

Burnett thought being challenged in the 13-12 Atlantic 10 final was valuable.

“Games like that make us better,” Burnett said. “We’ve faced adversity. We’ve been up, we’ve been down. We’ve been tied. We’ve had every scenario we needed to have. That’s going to prepare us for NCAAs.”

This is Colorado’s first appearance ever in the NCAA Tournament. The program began in 2014 and coach Ann Elliott, who played with McMahon at Northwestern, has quickly made CU nationally competitive.

Darby Kiernan leads CU with 72 points (49 goals, 23 assists). Johnna Fusco isn’t far behind with 50 goals and 10 assists.

Goalie Paige Soenksen has an 8.17 goals against average and a 50.2 save percentage.

The Buffaloes have captured 279 of 465 draws, a 60 percent success rate. Kiernan has a team-high 118 draw wins.

UMass counters with Hannah Murphy, who has won 198 draws this season. The matchup in the middle could go a long way to dictating the game.

“We have to have the ball more than them. Not to oversimplify it, but it comes down to draw controls and 50-50 balls,” McMahon said. “The possession game is going to be really critical.”

McMahon expects Colorado to be improved since the first meeting too.

“They’re definitely battle-tested. They’ve had a really tough schedule,” McMahon said. “I think it’s going to be a battle of two really great teams.”

Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage

]]>