Saturday’s game could not end soon enough for the No. 15 Massachusetts men’s lacrosse team.

No. 7 Hofstra proved to be too much, as Jay Card and Adrian Sorichetti combined for seven goals in the Pride’s 14-5 rout in the ESPNU Warrior Classic in East Hartford, Conn.

“We were outplayed in every facet of the game today, which is obviously very disappointing,” said UMass coach Greg Cannella in a UMassAthletics.com interview. “We felt we were poor in our execution not only in our game plan, but just [in] the way that we play and obviously Hofstra is a very, very good team. Give them all the credit in the world and they took it to us.”

The Minutemen (8-4, 3-2 Colonial Athletic Association) dug themselves an insurmountable hole early, falling behind 7-0 in the first 26:14 of the game.

“We didn’t execute today,” said junior defenseman Tom Celentani. “We didn’t show up to play. We had a good game plan, but we just didn’t execute it.”

Meanwhile, Hofstra (12-1, 4-1 CAA) clicked on all cylinders, as its attack picked apart the Minutemen defense at will. The Pride outshot UMass by an astounding margin, 47-22, and dominated face-offs, 15-6, seizing possession for the vast majority of the afternoon.

The Minutemen shot themselves in the foot on their few offensive possessions, committing 17 turnovers, including six unforced errors.

“They outplayed us on offense,” said Cannella. “They won every face-off, it seemed like, in the game and we didn’t have the ball on offense at all. When we had the ball on offense, we either threw it away or we executed poorly in what we wanted to do.”

Card led Hofstra with four goals, while Sorichetti earned his first career hat trick. Stephen Bentz, Jamie Lincoln and Lance Yapor contributed a pair of goals each in the 36th meeting between the two sides.

UMass finally caught their first break of the game in the final seconds of the first half. After the defense denied Hofstra’s final scoring attempt of the half, senior Stephen Zorkers sprinted downfield and fired a shot from straightaway that hit off of Pride goalkeeper Andrew Gvozden’s chest and crossed the line just as time expired to cut the deficit to 7-2.

The last-second goal did not produce the same spark as last Saturday, when sophomore Will Manny scored in the closing seconds of the third against Drexel to ignite a fourth quarter comeback. Instead, Hofstra responded with the first five goals of the second half to erase any likelihood of similar fireworks from the Minutemen.

The Maroon and White appeared to catch some life at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Trailing 12-2, UMass strung together three unanswered goals in an otherwise lopsided affair. Art Kell netted a pair of tough, grinding scores with 13:24 and 12:31, respectively remaining in the game, as the junior carved through the heart of the Pride defense to strike some momentum for the Minutemen. Less than a minute later, sophomore Colin Fleming fired a shot through Gvozden’s legs to cut the margin to 12-5.

That was as close as UMass would get, as Yapor netted consecutive goals for Hofstra to put an end to the Maroon and White surge.

UMass-Hofstra has emerged as one of the top rivalries in college lacrosse. Despite Saturday’s loss, the Minutemen still lead the all-time series, 19-16, including last year’s 11-9 win on March 27 at Garber Field.

The Minutemen face the tough task of forgetting about this loss as they look forward to Friday’s matchup with CAA foe Delaware.

“…You can take [Saturday] and think about the game but after [Saturday]…we’re living in tomorrow and we [have to] move on and we [have to] focus on Delaware,” said Celentani. “We still [have] a game left. We still control our own destiny so I think we’ll be alright.”

Cannella hopes his team has the mental toughness to put this loss behind them.

“You just say, ‘Hey, this is over and you [have to] prepare for Delaware next week,’” said Cannella. “If it’s a learning experience, hopefully guys take it personally and prepare themselves well for next week’s game, but you don’t get a lot out of this [game]…”

UMass returns home this week for its clash with the Blue Hens on Friday at 7 p.m. on Garber Field.

Stephen Sellner can be reached at [email protected].