Lacrosse Celebrates At Annual Banquet

BOULDER — The University of Colorado lacrosse team was able to gather Sunday morning in the Arrow Touchdown Club to celebrate not one, but two, special groups of seniors as well as the last two seasons.
 
The Buffaloes were unable to celebrate their 2020 season due to the pandemic and therefore were unable to celebrate those seniors. This banquet served as a way for the coaches, staff, team, parents and everyone else to celebrate both teams and all the seniors for everything they accomplished; not just in their final season but in their entire careers at CU.
 
Head coach Ann Elliott Whidden welcomed the crowd at the start of the banquet, talking about everything these groups of athletes had overcome including losing a teammate, almost losing a second teammate and having their final season cut short. She also talked about the resilience everyone showed to get through it all together.
 
Whidden then talked about the 2021 season as well. That team went on to play in the Pac-12 Tournament Championship game and is the only team to play in all three conference title games since the Pac-12 started sponsoring women's lacrosse.

After recapping the season, Whidden handed out awards the student-athletes earned during the 2021 season (there were no awards for the 2020 season since it was cut short after five games).
 
First up were the All-Pac-12 awards. Sadie Grozier, Julia Lisella and Katie White received their first team awards and Charlie Rudy was given her second team honor. Members of the Pac-12 All-Tournament Team, Grozier, Lisella and Devon Bayer, came to the front to receive their awards and Lisella also took home her Pac-12 Defender of the Year honor.  
 
Grozier and Lisella did not have much of a chance to sit down as they were called back up to receive their IWLCA All-Region Second Team awards, which concluded the athletic awards portion of the season.
 
Eliza Cahill was presented the Pac-12 Lacrosse Scholar-Athlete of the Year award, which is presented to a graduating senior in the Pac-12. She became the first Buff to earn the award in the three years since the conference has been awarding it.
 
The program continued with the announcement of the Pac-12 Spring Academic Honor Roll as 27 were named to the team (see link for full list). As a team, the Buffs earned the Intercollegiate Women's Lacrosse Coaches Association Team award and had 11 named to the academic honor roll: Bayer, Kasey Braun, Kate Burnside, Cahill, Grozier, Bailey Hawkins, Zoe Lawless, Liz Phillips, Sabrina Robbins, Rudy and Kate White.
 
Following the athletic and academic awards, each class was given their letter awards.
 
In a tradition for the lacrosse team, an underclassman was chosen to talk about the seniors. Hawkins talked about the class of 2021 while Bayer talked about the 2020 class. Then Mindy Sclaro, the team's academic coordinator, talked about each of the seniors from both classes.
 
The crowd was treated to the 2021 season highlight video at the end of the program.