The Hofstra University men’s lacrosse team fell 15-13 in a tough match to No. 20 Sacred Heart University at James M. Shuart Stadium on Saturday, March 28. The Pride’s losing ways continued as they dipped to 2-7 on the season. Sacred Heart remains one of three undefeated teams left at the Division I level.
“Our guys played hard,” said Hofstra head coach Seth Tierney. “The ball has not gone our way at times. We need to make it go our way, but the way we played against a very talented, ranked team; [I hope] it puts some juice back in us.”
Sophomore Drew Bogardus had a season-high four goals, bringing him up to 10 on the season. Anthony Mollica, Trevor Natalie, Joey DeYoung and Gus Langtry all had multiple goals in the contest.
“Things are starting to balance out for [Bogardus],” Tierney said. “He put the ball in the back of the goal a lot today. I’m awfully proud of him. He could’ve turned on the team when things weren’t going his way, but he didn’t. He stuck to the game plan, and for him to put in four today, I’m really proud of him.”
DeYoung broke the scoring for the Pride only 38 seconds in. Sacred Heart retaliated quickly to tie the game at one apiece. With time dwindling on the possession, Pioneers goalie Craig Daria took a shot downfield to avoid a turnover. Hofstra goalie Shea Kennedy had left his net to mark a defender, allowing Daria to score Sacred Heart’s first goal.
The Pride played close with the ranked Pioneers, never allowing them to lead by more than one in the first half. A huge reason was Hofstra’s improvement on faceoffs today. They won just 33.7% of faceoffs coming into the day. Against Sacred Heart, Nico Ghicas won 13-27.
“I can’t tell you how hard we’ve work at [faceoffs] with different gameplans,” Tierney said. “[Ghicas] is learning. He’s a freshman going against much bigger faceoff guys. Today, he did a much better job.”
In the second half, Sacred Heart pulled away, building a four-goal lead at its largest. Bogardus and DeYoung struck to cut the lead to two, but the Pride could not find another goal to mount a full comeback against the No. 20 team in the country.
The Pride won most facets of the game, including having fewer turnovers, more ground balls and more caused turnovers.
“Three out of the last four games, if you covered the names on the scoresheet and just looked at both teams’ stats, you would have thought we won based on how well we played,” Tierney said. “We’ve been winning all the stats, just that final stat is eluding us. The guys have done everything we’ve asked of them, and it just hasn’t resulted in that final most important stat for the team – a win.”
The Pride played their most complete game of the season according to Tierney, saying they played “Turnpike tough today.”
“During the season, you lose a little bit of your aggressiveness when you’re losing,” Tierney said. “You’re trying little things to fix it. Today, I was going to be alright with ‘Turnpike Style,’ with effort plays. We all want what’s best. We’re going to get there or die trying.”
The Pride fell last weekend to Monmouth University to drop to 0-2 in Coastal Athletic Association games. The Pride will finish their three-game homestand with a conference game against Fairfield University on Saturday, April 4.
