By Doug Bonjour

For the Hofstra men’s lacrosse team, the 2007 season was a matter of coming up too short too often. Led by Head Coach Seth Tierney, a youthful Pride roster which featured newcomers Thomas Interlicchio, forward, Danny Orlando, goalkeeper, and Dan Stein, attack, compiled a record of 6-8 (3-3 CAA), with seven of those losses decided by just one goal.

“We couldn’t finish the game,” said Tierney in reference to last season’s struggles. “A lot of it was that we puttered out at the end of the fourth quarter because there just weren’t that many guys that were playing.”

But with last year’s shortcomings now a thing of the past, the 2008 Pride are looking to return to their winning ways.

Tierney, now in his second season under the helm, returns 27 players, including eight starters. Six of the top seven scorers from last year’s team will be in a Hofstra uniform once again, as the Pride will look toward junior attackman Tommy Dooley and senior midfielder Mike Unterstein to again provide some punch around the opponent’s net.

Dooley is coming off yet another solid season; as he led last year’s team in goals with 26 and points with 28.

Unterstein played an integral role on many of Dooley’s goals, leading last year’s team with 18 assists.

The lone departure among last year’s leading scorers is Ryan Miller. Miller cemented himself as a go-to guy for last year’s team, placing second on the team in scoring with 25 points.

With departure comes youth for the Pride, whose 38-man roster is accompanied with 20 underclassmen.

Tierney knows that this youth can sometimes be a negative for the Pride, especially since true experience can only be gained on game day.

“Our weakness is we’re young, and we need to become more of a mature team. That is something that is hard to happen in practice, but it’s certainly easier to happen when going through games,” he said.

Hofstra’s freshmen did get their first game-action last Saturday in the 2008 season-opener at nemesis Massachusetts, and the youth surely bit the Pride. Hofstra opened the new campaign with a disappointing 8-4 loss.

However, with the experience gained from the defeat, Tierney says the “bar has been raised,” and these freshman now need to “play like juniors” in Saturday’s home-opener against Brown.

“We had a lot of freshmen who played in their first lacrosse game. But they’re not playing in their first lacrosse game any more. They understand what it’s going to take mentally to prepare themselves for the next lacrosse game,” explained Tierney.

Midfielder Jay Card and attackman Kevin Ford are among the numerous freshmen expected to contribute this season.

When the Pride take the field for their next lacrosse game, they will do so without junior defenseman Adam Swarsen, who is sidelined for the entirety of the season with a knee injury.

Swarsen, an All-Colonial Athletic Association second-team selection in 2007, was expected to be the focal point of a young and inexperienced defense.

The defense had already been weakened with the graduation of both John Gorman and Julian Watts.

Not only do injuries affect production on the field, but team chemistry also takes a hit.

“With injuries, we’re going to have to move some people around and it might prolong us another week of finding chemistry or something along those lines. But we’ll get there, little by little,” said Tierney.

Tierney is hopeful that it does not take long for the Pride to find the chemistry that is necessary for teams hoping to compete.

“I’m hopeful that it takes just a couple more days and we bring it together for Brown. That would certainly be our goal,” he said.

However, even though the Pride are young and banged-up, they have a will. This will is what Tierney believes is the team’s strongest asset.

“Their will to erase last year, and they know what it’s going to have to take. It’s going to have to take more. We need more from guys to erase some of those one goal games,” he said.

On Saturday and beyond, their will is sure to be tested, and it will have to be strong if they want to reach their goal of winning the CAA.

For now, Tierney knows that “What doesn’t kill us will only make us stronger.”