By Ryan McCord
Old Man Winter paid a snow-covering visit to New England last weekend, simultaneously delaying the Pride men’s lacrosse season opening match-up with the University of Massachusetts and its offensive production.
The No. 10 Minutemen took advantage of the Blue & Gold’s sluggish start. They jumped out to a 3-0 lead holding the Pride scoreless until just three seconds remained in the opening period, which lead to an 11-7 home win in less than favorable playing conditions.
“We played good defense, we just couldn’t clear the ball and we gave them a lot of chances,” Pride head coach John Danowski said. “We were fortunate it wasn’t 6-1 at the end of the first period.”
Senior preseason All-American Sean Morris tied a career-high with five assists and eight points to lead UMass to its fifth straight win over the Pride.
Sophomore Rory Pedrick, senior Jake Deane and Morris got the Minutemen started with the first three goals of the game, while Pride senior Tim Treubig fed junior Athan Iannucci for the team’s first goal of the season just before the first period expired.
Iannucci returned the favor to Treubig for the Pride’s second goal with 6:58 remaining in the first half, but not before the Minutemen had scored twice beforehand, courtesy of Andrew Reccione and Jamie Yaman to start the second period and extend the lead to 5-1.
“You have to give UMass credit defensively, they had a good scheme, one that is different than we are used to seeing,” Danowski said. “Offensively, Sean Morris is a good player. He let’s the game come to him, and part of a very unselfish group.”
Pride senior John Keysor took matters into his own hands, jumpstarting the offense with an unassisted goal 1:34 into the second half, making the score 7-4.
Once again, Morris proved as good as advertised, catapulting another 2-0 Minuteman run with an unassisted goal of his own, followed by a Pedrick to Jim Connolly combination, giving UMass a commanding 9-4 lead before the Pride could even blink.
“We need to work on our communication skills defensively, we didn’t communicate a bunch of times and that hurt us,” Danowski said. “That was a huge issue.”
Chris Unterstein recorded the first point of his senior campaign, assisting freshman Tom Dooley for his first goal wearing the Blue & Gold, with 3:31 left to play in the third period.
Morris made a developing theme official by answering another Pride goal, completing a hat trick just before the end of the third period. Pat Larmon put the finishing touches on the Minutemen’s total, giving his team its largest lead at 11-5 with 3:57 into the final period.
“We gave up two goals on face-off, that’s two too many. Two more goals off the transition, and sometimes those transition goals are courtesy of poor decision making offensively,” Danowski said, referring to situational goals. “If you don’t make good decisions on one end, it will come back to haunt you on the other.”