Senior Day celebrations were not enough to lead the Hofstra Pride men’s lacrosse team to victory, as they were defeated at the hands of the Towson University Tigers 10-8 at James M. Shuart Stadium on Saturday, April 8.
“I had each player write down one senior’s number that they were going to play for today,” said Hofstra head men’s lacrosse coach Seth Tierney. “A guy that did something for him, off the field, in the locker room, at practice. I had them write a piece of tape and put it on their shoe. My number was 371, because I added all the seniors numbers up, and that was the number I wrote on my person because I wanted to coach my hardest for them.”
The Pride drops down to 3-8 overall on the season and is now 1-3 in Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) play. Towson improves to 3-7 on the season overall, with a CAA record of 2-2.
“Really, really disappointing,” Tierney said. “I thought we started out as clean as we possibly could. We threw them a curveball by starting out in zone. Things were clicking offensively, but we just couldn’t sustain it. It was like playing our twin brother out there in quarters one, two and three.”
Hofstra got off to a hot start early, scoring four goals inside the first six minutes and 55 seconds of the game.
Senior Dalton Seesz scored the first goal on the Pride’s first possession. Three minutes and a second later, Matt Elder scored his first goal of the day, picking up a rebounded shot and putting it past Tigers goalkeeper Evan Long. Just under two minutes later, Sam Lutfi took a pass from Rory Jones and ripped a shot into the back of the net. Fellow senior Ryan Sheridan finished this hot start for Hofstra by knifing his way through multiple defenders and then rocketing one into the goal.
After the Tigers called a timeout, things took a turn. Within a span of three minutes and 11 seconds, Towson got goals from Joaquin Villagomez, Kyle Berkeley and two from Mikey Weisshaar.
Nine seconds into the second period, Josh Webber took a shot that got past Hofstra goalkeeper Mac Gates. Elder tied the game with his second goal of the game on a feed from Sheridan to tie the score at five goals apiece, where it would stay going into the halftime break.
The Tigers pounced right at the faceoff to open the second half. Five seconds into the third quarter, Ryan Schrier sniped a shot past Gates to give Towson a 6-5 lead.
Not much happened until the eight minute and twenty-nine second mark when Gerard Kane got his sixteenth goal of the season on a pass from Griffin Turner. The Pride then took the lead four minutes later when John Recher scored after a one-man effort.
The lead didn’t last long as Villagomez scored his second goal of the game on the man-up advantage after a tripping penalty by Pride senior Danny Ochs.
The Tigers continued their trend of scoring early to start periods, as 39 seconds into the final period, Schrier scored his second of the game on a feed from Villagomez. Down 8-7, Turner took a shot on the wing unassisted to score the Pride’s final goal of the game.
The winning goal came from Schrier just a bit after the seven-minute mark in the final period, netting his third of the game. Webber scored his second goal unassisted with eight seconds left on the clock to put the icing on the cake for the visitors.
Hofstra’s next appearance on the pitch will be on the road against the Drexel University Dragons in Philadelphia on Saturday, April 15. Draw control is set for 11 a.m.
Photo courtesy of Hofstra Athletics
