Florida head coach Amanda O’Leary didn’t really know what she was in for when she stood on the sideline with 24 freshmen for the program’s first-ever game in 2010.

Four seasons later, expectations have changed. This postseason marks the third NCAA tournament appearance for the Gators, and now those inaugural freshmen are trying to win a national championship in their last season in a UF uniform.

“It was an exciting start,” O’Leary said. “Coming in as freshmen, starting a brand-new program, not really knowing what to expect. Obviously over the course of the four years, they’ve worked really hard. They’ve competed hard.”

Standing in the way of Florida’s first championship is Syracuse, the team that came back from seven goals down with less than 12 minutes left to shock the Gators 14-13 in double overtime in last year’s national semifinal. While UF did enact some revenge in a 14-10 win earlier in the regular season, championship hopes are on the line Saturday.

“It would be huge. We’ve worked so hard the past four years just to get where we are today,” said senior Brittany Dashiell, who captained the team as a freshman. “From now on, each game, if we lose we’re done forever.”

The idea for a Florida women’s lacrosse program was conceived in 2005, and the school formally announced it in 2006. A year later, Florida hired O’Leary and joined the American Lacrosse Conference. In 2008, the school began construction on Donald R. Dizney Stadium.

O’Leary came in two years before the team played its first game. Previously, she was the coach at Yale for 14 seasons.

“I think I was just looking for a different situation,” O’Leary said. “I had great student-athletes at Yale and have great student-athletes down here as well. I was just looking for a little bit different of an opportunity.”

Dashiell is one of eight seniors from Maryland. Four out of the other five seniors reside in either New York in New Jersey. O’Leary said that when starting out with the recruiting process, she focused on the Northeast because she had experience with the area.

“We went after places where we felt most comfortable and that we thought we could get players to come to Florida,” O’Leary said.

O’Leary said the greatest struggle in getting top recruits to commit to Florida was its lack of facilities to show recruits – no field, no locker rooms. Just promises from the athletic director Jeremy Foley.

That didn’t stop O’Leary from compiling the top recruiting class in the nation, a group that included seven first-team high school All-Americans. That first year, the Gators finished 10-8 and ended the year No. 18 in the nation.

“I think it took a special group of girls to take that leap of faith and just believe in what (the coaches) were saying,” senior Sam Farrell said. “That freshman year was a very tough year. They had to get us into shape. We had 24 freshmen. We didn’t have that leadership. We didn’t have the older girls to tell us what to do and what not to do.”

The next season Florida finished 16-4 and made the national quarterfinals as an at-large team before losing to No. 5-seed Duke. Last spring, as the No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, Florida fell to fourth-seeded Syracuse in a game in which the Gators led 9-3 in the second half.

Senior goalie and Liverpool, N.Y., native Mikey Meagher believes that with or without a national championship, she and her classmates will have left a profound mark on Florida lacrosse.

“I think regardless our class will leave a legacy because we started from nothing when we were being recruited,” Meagher said. “We just had pictures to go off what our facility would look like.”

Published on May 16, 2013 at 7:39 pm

Contact Sam: sblum@syr.edu | @SamBlum3