By Jeffrey Werner – STAFF WRITER
There wasn’t a game more important on the Hofstra Pride men’s lacrosse schedule than Friday’s matchup against the Stags of Fairfield University. The season, and a spot in CAA post-season play, was on the line at Rafferty Stadium for the Pride. Unfortunately, the winds weren’t blowing in Hofstra’s favor as a late run in the fourth period wasn’t enough and the season ended in a bitter 5-4 defeat.
The disappointment of the loss was evident in head coach Seth Tierney’s voice during his post-game interview.
“It’s just really hard. All season long, we’ve had situations where we either couldn’t catch a break or make a break happen for us, and tonight we got out to a rough start and they jumped all over us.”
The Stags did exactly what the Dragons of Drexel, Minutemen of UMass and Big Red of Cornell did to defeat Hofstra: they got an early lead in the first period. Tristan Sperry started the scoring for the Stags with his 20th goal of the season two minutes into the game to give the Stags a 1-0 lead.
Jake Knostman extended the lead to 2-0 with his 16th goal of the season four minutes later. TJ Neubauer, Joe Rodrigues and Dave Fleming all contributed goals in the first period to end the first period with a commanding 5-0 lead for Fairfield.
The second period belonged to Hofstra, as it was their turn to go on the offensive. Brian von Bargen put the Pride on the scoreboard just 1:55 in.
He scored for the second time in the game a little over four minutes later to cut the lead to three goals. There has never been a game this season when Sam Llinares didn’t have his name in the stat sheet, and this game was no exception as he scored his 33rd goal of the season to bring the score to 5-3 at the end of the half.
Neither team scored in the third period, so it was onto the fourth. If Hofstra was going to complete their comeback, they would need to do it then. With less than three minutes in the game, Zachary Franco shot the ball into the net to bring the Pride to within one.
Then, with less than 30 seconds to go, the Pride found themselves scrambling to get a shot into the net to force overtime. Llinares shot the ball wide, but senior Mike Malave was able to get the ball back. With seven seconds to go, Malave tried to be the hero for Hofstra, but his shot went just above the goal and officially ended the season for him and the Pride.
With this loss, the Pride officially closed out their 2015 season at 5-9 overall and 2-3 in CAA play. This season marked the third time the Pride failed to make the CAA semi-finals in the last four seasons, and also the second time the Pride has finished with a losing record since 2012. This was certainly not the season fans expected from the Pride after last season, when Hofstra came up one goal short of winning the CAA title.
The return of Mike Malave, Sam Llinares and Korey Hendrickson on the attack had Pride fans excited about the offensive firepower those players would bring. Also returning to the team was Chris Selva, a senior, and fans were expecting him to lead the team and make fantastic saves to get Hofstra the wins it needed to return.
Despite the disappointment of the end of the season, the Pride have some uplifting news for the program. Sophomore defender Joe Ferriso, who passed away prior to the 2015 season, was named as one of the five finalists for the One Love Foundation’s Yeardley Reynolds Love Unsung Hero Award.
This award recognizes two individuals, one man and one woman, for their dedication, integrity, humility, hard work, community service, leadership, kindness and sportsmanship – all qualities exemplified by UVA’s Yeardley Love whom passed away in 2010.
Ferriso was named along with Todd Stewart from Brown University, Geoffrey Sullivan from Colgate University, Patrick Frazier from Loyola University and Kyle Zittel from Penn State University.
