By Doug Bonjour
Only 60 minutes. For the casual fan, those minutes may seem to move in rapid succession, but for the Hofstra men’s lacrosse team and their many fans, those minutes seem like an eternity. Following Hofstra’s 9-7 victory over Delaware in the Colonial Athletic Conference semifinals, the Pride now find themselves one win away from achieving a goal that has been etched in stone since day one; a CAA championship.
“We knew it was going to be a wild one. Hofstra and Delaware always is, and I’m proud of my guys for the effort they put forth,” said Hofstra Head Coach Seth Tierney.
Led by three-goal efforts from attackmen Tommy Dooley and Dan Stein and an all-around solid showing from the defense, Hofstra was able to defeat the Blue Hens for the second time in as many tries this season. The Pride came into last night’s game off three consecutive subpar efforts- two of which were wins-but they appeared to be in top form from the opening face-off until the final whistle.
Dooley scored just 1:08 into the contest off a feed from midfielder Michael Colleluori to put the Pride on the scoreboard first. The two teams traded leads throughout the opening quarter, but once the second quarter started, the Pride grabbed a lead that would not be relinquished. With just 1:12 remaining in the first half, midfielder Anthony Muscarella fired a shot past Delaware goaltender Tom Scherr to put the Pride up 4-3. The score would stay the same going into the halftime break. But as Tierney would admit, “the most meaningless stat in sports is the halftime score.”
Yet luckily for the Pride and the 1,293 fans who attended James M. Shuart Stadium, there would be no meltdown for the Pride. One goal would be as close as Delaware would get.
The win sets up a rematch on Saturday at top-seeded Drexel, who handed the Pride a heartbreaking 9-8 double-overtime defeat just one month ago.
“The good thing is we have some history with Drexel; the bad thing is it’s not good history,” explained Tierney.
Recent history against Drexel has been disappointing to say the least, as the Pride have lost the last two meetings to the Dragons, spoiling what was once an 18-game win streak for Hofstra against Drexel.
However, both Tierney and his players know that the only recent history that will matter will be the 60 minutes that sit on the clock on Saturday.