By Max Sass, Sports Editor
The Hofstra men’s lacrosse team received an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament on Sunday night and will travel to College Park, MD to face the no. 3 seed Maryland Terrapins on Saturday May 15. The Pride finished the year 9-4 with wins over three top 20 teams (Army, Brown and Towson) as well as a top 10 win over Johns Hopkins.
Head coach Seth Tierney was elated that his team gets to keep playing. “We’re thrilled that we’re in the NCAA playoffs,” he said in the team’s locker room after the team found out its fate. “There are 16 teams playing and we couldn’t be happier.”
Hofstra was considered to be on the bubble heading into Sunday’s selection meetings. The Pride had its big wins but failed to make its own conference tournament, going 2-3 in CAA play. Tierney called the news that his team got in “an exhale” and knew that missing the CAA Tournament put his team at risk. “Not making the conference tournament, basically we were a bird sitting on a fence waiting to get shot down,” he said.
Tierney commented further on making the NCAA Tournament despite not making the CAA Tournament, saying, “I am not proud to say we didn’t make the conference tournament, that is not something I am wearing on my shirt but I think we need to learn from that and we need to play with a sense of urgency.”
The Pride has an opening round matchup with a team it has not faced since the 2000 NCAA Tournament. Maryland finished the season 11-3 and ranked third in the nation according to the Nike/IL Media Poll. The Terrapins are led by junior attack Grant Catalino who has 53 points on the season including 33 goals.
Despite the midseason swoon the Pride suffered, it appears to be peaking at the right time and on an upswing for lacrosse’s second season where all the teams are even once again. Even though everyone is even, Tierney knows his team cannot look ahead and must take this tournament one game at a time. “There are 16 teams that are 0-0,” Tierney said. “One teams goes 4-0, that is it. The team that goes 4-0, they cannot go anywhere close to that until they are 1-0. There is going to be eight teams that are 1-0 and we are going to work hard and try to be one of those teams.”
The Pride will look to upset the heavily favored Terrapins on May 15 and will need a lot of hard work to do it. The Pride and its coaching staff are serious about extending its season and are not going to skip one moment of preparation leading up the game. “I am not going to celebrate tonight,” Tierney said. “I am going to bed early and I am going to get up early and we’re going to get back to work and I am thrilled to be on the practice field tomorrow.”
The other matchups in the tournament are Mount St. Mary’s at no. 1 Virginia, Denver University at no. 8 Stony Brook, Johns Hopkins at no. 5 Duke, Delaware at no. 4 North Carolina, Notre Dame at no. 6 Princeton, Loyola at no. 7 Cornell and Army at no. 2 Syracuse.