By Kyle Kandetzki – Sports Editor
The Pride came into their season opener vs. Marquette saying, ‘they couldn’t let this one get away from them again’, but much to their dismay, that is exactly what happened.

The Hofstra Pride men’s lacrosse team opened up their 2015 campaign with a home battle at James M. Shuart Stadium against the Marquette Golden Eagles, the same team that upset them on opening day last season. The still relatively new program, behind former Pride assistant coach Joe Amplo, came from a four-goal deficit to shock Hofstra 11-10.

“I thought we did what we wanted to do early in the game,” said head coach Seth Tierney. “[But] we gave them life, we didn’t make the plays we wanted to make.”

Early into the afternoon, everything seemed right for the Pride, starting with the pregame events. With a #36 painted onto the playing turf, and ‘JF’ patches on their jerseys, a moment of silence was observed for fallen teammate Joe Ferriso, who inspired the team’s motto, “Play For Joe”. Hofstra, with emotion and energy on display, carried the memory of the Copiague native onto the field.

The first period was exclusively Hofstra’s, with some flare to boot. Sophomore Brier Davis was first on the board with a flashy behind the back score, aided by the assist from new face (but not new last name, his brother Matt is a star at Notre Dame) Brendan Kavanagh.

But some familiar names completed a four-goal period for the Pride, starting off with preseason CAA player of the year pick, Sam Llinares. Llinares was absolutely attacked by the Marquette defense, but still muscled his way through a barrage for the score. Korey Hendrickson and Ryan Rielly then both went unassisted, with Rielly utilizing the long pole, to put Hofstra up 4-0 going into the second.

It seemed like all momentum was on Hofstra’s side, but the Golden Eagles fought back to turn the tide two minutes into the new period, thanks in part to a failed clear and pass by Finn Sullivan. Marquette’s Jordan Greenfield scooped up the blown clear pass and put the ball past goalie Chris Selva, while Blaine Fleming made it 4-2 just two minutes later, with Tierney fuming on the sidelines.

Marquette would ultimately outscore the Pride 4-2 in the second period, after two more goals just 2:30 apart from each other later on, but luckily Hofstra took advantage of MU’s errors, too. Mike Malave found his first of the day in a man-up situation due to an illegal MU crosscheck, while freshman Dylan Alderman banged in the third unassisted goal of the day.

At halftime, the game was clearly not all Hofstra’s anymore, but a 6-4 lead was still somewhat comfortable.

For the final time on this cold afternoon, the Pride controlled the Golden Eagle defense after Davis and Malave both tacked on their second of the day, and grabbed their second four-goal lead, 8-4 with 8:25 left in the third.

But Hofstra simply couldn’t hold Marquette down for too long, and a few common themes late in the game started to appear: failures at the face-off, and fouls at bad times. A string of three unanswered Marquette goals started off with a man-up Kyle Whitlow score. Just over 1:30 later, Whitlow added one more along with teammate Ryan McNamara, and the score was suddenly 8-7.

“We give them some momentum back in some man-up opportunities,” said Tierney. “Certainly some issues with clearing and face-offs, they’re on the board in the locker room, but we didn’t clean those up.”

Davis, though, took advantage of Marquette goalie Jimmy Danaher being out of place to complete a hat trick, and add a two-goal cushion heading into the final period.

Hofstra let Marquette score four in the final period in 2014 to complete their collapse, and in a case of déjà vu, they did that once again. Llinares provided some relief with an unassisted score to make it 10-8 in the last ten minutes of the game, and the score would freeze at that for the next six minutes.

The Golden Eagles responded just when they needed to, with Whitlow completing a hat trick with 3:57 left, thanks to a man-up chance provided from Sullivan’s third penalty minute of the day. But Whitlow wasn’t done there, putting his total up to four goals to knot the game at 10-10 with just over two and a half minutes left.

“They play a unique style of offense,” said Tierney. “But it’s not like we weren’t prepared, we were just a step behind, when we needed to be a step ahead.”

Overtime seemed like a daunting prospect for a spiraling Hofstra team whose last game was a triple-OT loss in the 2014 CAA title game. But they wouldn’t even get to worry about that, as Blaine Fleming provided the dagger past an inexperienced Hofstra defense to give Marquette the game-winning goal with 1:18 remaining. The Pride won the ensuing faceoff, but fittingly turned the ball over.

The Golden Eagles let the clock run out without needing to worry about a stall warning, and the entire roster mobbed each other at their net in celebration of yet another big win for a young program.

“We were carrying a lot of emotion into this one,” said Tierney. “Please don’t take that as an excuse [though].”

The Pride ended up losing the faceoff battle 13-12, after a strong start by Kris Clarke went south in the second half, and was temporarily subbed out for Connor Horl, who didn’t help at 0-3.

Goalie Selva, one of many players of a large senior class, saved just one more (12) than he allowed in, while his opponent Danaher was huge, especially in a first quarter where the Pride shot 19 times.

Hofstra will now travel to Princeton University on Saturday, February 21st to attempt to avoid going into a 0-2 hole for the second year in a row. The Pride fell to Princeton 12-10 last season.

The game is set for a 3:00 p.m. start after being rescheduled due to potential weather conditions.