Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. – Regis is the 2022 Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference (RMAC) women’s lacrosse preseason favorite, the league announced Thursday. The RMAC preseason women’s lacrosse poll is voted on by the league’s seven head coaches. Coaches are not permitted to vote for their own program.
 
The top-billed Rangers enter the season after cruising through the 2021 campaign with a 14-2 overall record and an 8-0 mark in conference play to capture the RMAC regular-season title. Regis then advanced to the 2021 NCAA Tournament as a No. 3 seed but fell in the opening round to eventual national champion Lindenwood. The Rangers return Kyleigh Peoples, who was recently named 2022 Preseason Attacker of the Year and a Preseason All-American by USA Lacrosse Magazine. Peoples enters the season as the reigning RMAC Attacker of the Year and was a prominent figure for the Regis offense, which closed the last season with a conference-leading 274 goals. The Rangers secured six first-place votes and 36 points to lead 2022 RMAC preseason voting.
 
After finishing 2021 with a  9-5 overall record and a 7-1 record in conference play, Colorado Mesa claims the second-place spot with 29 points in preseason voting. The Mavericks return redshirt sophomore Kiley Davis, who led CMU with 40 points and 33 goals one year ago. As a team, Colorado Mesa finished the 2021 campaign ranked 25th in the nation with a .484 shot percentage.
 
University of Colorado Colorado Springs rounds out the top three after garnering 26 points and one first-place vote. The Mountain Lions are led into the 2022 season by newly appointed head coach Melissa Rausch, who takes the reins of a squad that finished with an 8-4 overall record last year, marking the most single-season wins in program history. Angela Naughton returns for her junior year at UCCS after recording 23 goals and 15 assists in 2021.
 
Westminster occupies the fourth-place spot with 18 points, followed by Fort Lewis in fifth place with 17 points. Colorado State University Pueblo sits in sixth place with 15 points, while Adams State rounds out the poll with six points.
 
The 2022 women’s lacrosse season begins Friday, Feb. 4, while conference play is set to begin Wednesday, Feb. 23. All seven teams are vying for a berth in the RMAC Tournament, which is slated for May 6 and 8 on the campus of the tournament’s highest remaining seed.