For 50-plus minutes, it essentially was a evenly fought battle.

But it wasn’t early, and against yet another ranked foe for the Colorado women’s lacrosse team, stumbling out of the gate was all it took to hand the Buffaloes a damaging defeat.

CU battled but fell short on Thursday, as the Buffaloes’ hopes for an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament took a hit with a 9-8 loss against No. 24 Denver at Prentup Field in the final nonconference game of the season. It was the Buffs’ third consecutive defeat against DU, and CU also fell to 2-6 this season against ranked foes.

The Buffs entered the match at No. 22 in the RPI, thanks largely to their strength-of-schedule metrics. But while CU still has two regular-season games remaining as well as a likely date in the Big 12 Conference tournament, which will be played at Prentup, Thursday’s defeat might force the Buffs to win the league tournament in order to land a berth in the 29-team NCAA Tournament field.

“I think for us, obviously we’ve played a tough schedule. We have a good RPI and a strong strength of schedule,” CU head coach Ann Elliott Whidden said. “But we’re in the world where everybody is beating somebody, and it’s happening week after week. This was a game we needed to win to put ourselves in the best position, and we didn’t. So we turn to conference play and we still have a great opportunity there. We’re still trying to earn our way into this conference tournament.”

Denver jumped to a 3-0 lead, scoring the first goal of the game just 1 minute, 41 seconds into the match before adding a second goal just 55 seconds later.

The Buffs pulled into a 4-4 tie on a Maddie Shoup goal early in the second quarter, but from there the contest followed a consistent pattern. The Pioneers proceeded to take four different two-goal leads — at 6-4, 7-5, 8-6 and 9-7. Each time, the Buffs were able to get within a goal, but were unable to again pull into a tie.

CU rallied to within a goal one last time on a tally by Molly Reed with 3:30 remaining, and the Buffs regained possession with a chance to again pull into a tie. However, CU committed a turnover, and the Pioneers were able to run out the clock.

“I’m proud of us for bouncing back after we went down by three in the first quarter,” said CU leading scorer Madeline Pisani, who tied a career-high with three assists. “It was good fight and determination to get ourselves back in that game. But we didn’t capitalize on those one-more-plays. All we needed was one more play and it’s a tie game. We play two more plays and we win. It’s just those extra plays that we didn’t capitalize on.”

CU (6-7, 2-1 Big 12) plays its final home game of the regular season Sunday against UC Davis (noon, ESPN+). CU finishes the regular season next week at Cincinnati before hosting the Big 12 tournament, which features the top four teams of the six-team league.