The 2019 Hofstra men’s lacrosse season ended without a Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) tournament bid. It was the first time that the team missed out on the tournament since the 2015 season.
The Pride ended the season with a 5-9 (2-3, CAA) record which put them at a tie with Drexel University for 4th place in the standings. But because of the Pride’s loss to Drexel in the regular season, the Dragons earned the final spot in the CAA tournament bracket.
“Certainly, we would love to have a better record,” said Hofstra head coach Seth Tierney after the team’s last game of the season. “We are going to get back to work and get better, but I want to thank the seniors and this year’s team because they set a pretty strong foundation.”
Hofstra, with a lot of new players on their roster started the season off well, winning their first two games of the year. Their first game in particular was a come-from-behind effort against Lehigh University on the road. Facing a 3-1 deficit in the final quarter of play the Pride closed out strong, scoring three goals to steal the victory on the road. The following week they won a 14-10 shootout against Utah University to win their first home game on the year and move to 2-0 on the season.
The team then lost four consecutive contests to Villanova, Stony Brook, Georgetown and Ohio State respectively. Their games against Villanova and Stony Brook came down to the wire, with them falling by one goal to each team, 10-9 and 11-10 respectively, with the Villanova game being decided in overtime. Their next two games came against nationally ranked opponents Georgetown and Ohio State where they lost decisively 14-6 to Georgetown and then 14-8 against Ohio State.
They then broke their four-game losing streak against St. John’s University by beating them 9-7 at home to improve to 3-4.
Then they went on another losing streak of three games in which they lost 11-10 to Providence, 10-7 to Rutgers and then a pivotal CAA matchup against No.10 Townson 10-9.
Their game against Townson was their first CAA matchup on the season and featured another come-from-behind win from the opposing team at Hofstra’s expense. With the teams heading to the halftime break with the Pride up 7-5, Hofstra just could not find the net in the third quarter and were shut out for the first 17:09 of the second half. Meanwhile, Townson tallied five goals during that span to take a 10-7 lead in the contest and would hold on the rest of the way to win the game. This was the Pride’s second week in a row that they were not able to score a goal in the third quarter of play, seemingly costing them the game.
The Pride bounced back the following week in another crucial CAA matchup against the University of Massachusetts with a 10-9 overtime victory but lost their next two games, one of which was the loss to Drexel.
In that matchup, the Pride controlled the pace of play and were having their way at home against the Dragons for the first three quarters of play. Leading 11-8 at the start of the fourth quarter, the Pride suffered another collapse and gave up five goals to the Dragons to lose the game and the CAA tournament tiebreaker to Drexel.
Hofstra went on to win their next and final game of the season on the road against Fairfield University 11-9, but they had already been eliminated from CAA tournament contention.
“I have never been more proud of a team than this team here for how they handled adversity and an up and down season,” Tierney said after that final game.
Hofstra junior Ryan Tierney led the Pride with a career-high 42 goals on the season, good for the second-most in the CAA. He also finished the season with 55 points, his first season reaching the 50-point plateau.
Tierney was named to the All-CAA first team. Classmate Eric Wenz was named to the All-CAA second team and freshman Sterlyn Ardrey was named to the CAA All-Rookie Team.
Photo courtesy of Hofstra Athletics.
