By Andrew Scharff
Saturday night’s game against Delaware summed up their season before they beat Army on Tuesday night. Like most games this season, the Pride had a poor first quarter by letting the Blue Hens get out to a 3-0 lead in the first quarter. Hofstra, like in the games against Brown, Johns Hopkins and Princeton, was not able to come back from its slow starts as they lost their CAA opener 6-5 to Delaware.
“We’re starting to get really good at losing one goal games. And it’s not something I want to be good at,” said Hofstra Men’s Lacrosse coach Seth Tierney.
What made the loss even worse was the loss of senior midfielder and face-off specialist Bill Peters to an ankle injury on the first play of the game. Without Peters and being down three goals in the first, Hofstra still managed to make a comeback as Anthony Muscarella, Tommy Dooley and Dan Stein answered back for the Pride. But Delaware scored two before halftime to take 5-3.
In the second half, Mike Unterstein would score two goals but sandwiched in between those goals was a score from Delaware attackman Adam Zuder-Havens which proved to be the game winner.
Hofstra would come close to tying the game but Zachary Heyl hit the goal-post twice sending Hofstra to another heart-wrenching loss.
Though Hofstra’s record is no eye-pleaser the Pride and especially coach Tierney have yet hit to hit the panic button. With one of the most difficult non-conference schedules, Hofstra has now played six straight games versus nationally ranked opponents.
As Hofstra is now at its halfway point of the season, the Pride’s coaching staff has start worrying about making the CAA conference tournament and the NCAA tournament.
“I would be concerned if we weren’t getting some opportunities to win some of these games,” Tierney said. “If you pump in our strength of schedule, RPI and all that stuff, were a top fifteen team because of who we lost to and the scores we’ve lost by.”
But making the CAA tournament, which has been the goal since day one, will be easier said than done. The loss to Delaware doesn’t help and they still have games left versus #15-ranked Towson and Drexel who upset then top-ranked Virginia.
Hofstra will next be action when the Wildcats of Villanova come to Hempstead for a 7 p.m. contest.