The Hofstra men’s lacrosse team has now dropped their third straight contest for the second time this season as they fall to No. 10-ranked Towson, 10-9, at Johnny Unitas Stadium on Saturday, March 30.
With the loss, the Pride lose their first game of Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) play while falling to 3-7 on the season. Hofstra star Ryan Tierney’s heroics came up short once again, as his sixth hat trick of the season – where he recorded four goals – wasn’t enough. The Pride also found scoring from freshman Sterlyn Ardrey and sophomore Joey Elarde who each scored two goals. For the Tigers, Grant Maloof and Brody McLean led the way with three goals each and helped their team improve to 6-3 on the year and 1-0 in the CAA.
This game seemed to mirror last week’s performance for the Pride against Rutgers when they came out of the gates on fire and controlled the flow of the game early on.
Ryan Tierney scored his first goal of the match at the 9:50 mark of the first quarter, which would be his first of two goals scored in the quarter. Maloof quickly scored two goals within 35 seconds of each other in order to take a brief 2-1 lead for Towson with 8:30 remaining in the first quarter. Hofstra then began to string together their offense as Tierney, Ardrey and Elarde each netted a goal over the last 5:38 of the quarter to take a commanding 4-2 lead over the Tigers.
Towson scored two of the first three goals in the second quarter off the hands of Maloof and McLean with Hofstra’s Tierney adding his third goal in between, making the score 5-4 in favor of Hofstra with under 13 minutes to play in the half. Hofstra then increased the lead to 7-4 as Elarde and Ardrey each netted their second goals of the game before Towson’s Mclean scored his second goal to pull closer and cut the lead to two at 7-5 with under two minutes remaining in the half.
With the teams entering the half with a 7-5 Pride lead, Hofstra looked to have all the momentum until they were shut out in the third quarter, just as they did against Rutgers one week before. For the second consecutive week, Hofstra could not muster any offense in the third quarter and lost the quarter 4-0 to the Tigers. Over a span of 17:09 in the second half of play, the Pride was held scoreless while the Tigers added five goals to take the lead at home, 10-7, with 12:51 left in the contest.
The 20:18 drought for Hofstra came to an end when Michael Altmann scored his second goal of the season to cut the deficit to 10-8. Tierney then netted the last goal of the day to make the score 10-9 with 2:55 to play.
Neither team scored for the rest of the game and Towson walked away with the win, 10-9.
“Going down 4-0 in the third quarter and still it being a one-goal game; it’s there [that] we’ve just got to pull it out,” said head coach Seth Tierney after the game. “We had our opportunities [but] didn’t bury them,” Tierney said. “I just think the ball wasn’t bouncing our way. We’ve got to just keep shooting through it.”
The Pride will look to snap their three-game losing skid next week at home against the University of Massachusetts in another highly contested CAA bout. That game will be played Saturday, April 6, with a start time of 1 p.m.
Photo courtesy of Hofstra Athletics
