Winning on the road in college lacrosse is hard enough, but doing so against two powerful opponents in Army and No. 16 Ohio State takes it to a whole other level.
Statement victories over the Black Knights and Buckeyes has the No. 7 Massachusetts men’s lacrosse team flying high heading into its third road test of the season at Brown on Saturday.
UMass (3-0) has kicked into gear away from Garber Field this season, outscoring its opponents 21-12 in its two road affairs this season, including a 9-3 dismantling of then-No. 12 OSU. With no shortage of experience and battle-tested players, the Minutemen have built off of last year’s 4-3 regular season mark away from Garber Field.
“I think they realize that … when you go on the road, there’s a lot you got to fight against and if you pull together as a group and stay focused as a group, you can be successful,” said UMass coach Greg Cannella of his seniors.
The Minutemen have 10 seniors on the roster and a solid core of juniors and sophomores that have valuable game experience transferring over from a year ago. Last year’s experience appears to have paid off when going into hostile environments this time around, as UMass has played arguably its two best games of the season when away from Amherst.
“That’s a good sign that our guys are getting ready to play and they know what they’re facing,” said Cannella.
Resiliency has been a common theme in both contests. In its most recent win over the Buckeyes, the Minutemen fell behind 2-0 right away but refused to go away. They responded a minute later with a pair of goals in a non-releasable man-advantage to knot the score at two. UMass then scored again to take the lead at the end of the first quarter. The run squandered all of the momentum from a Buckeyes team fresh off of an upset win last week over No. 12 Denver.
The game was never the same after that point as UMass seized control for the remainder of the affair, en route to a 9-3 victory.
The season opener against Army told a different story. Two goals from Will Manny and one by Kyle Smith ignited the Minutemen to a 3-0 lead with four minutes, 24 second remaining in the first. However, the Black Knights refused to give in, netting back-to-back scores to make it a one-goal game.
Both sides continued to exchange runs all game long, but each time Army closed the deficit, UMass fired back with a run of its own to neutralizing the opposition’s streak.
Those offensive runs were missing in last year’s road losses at Albany and Harvard.
Against the Great Danes, the Minutemen couldn’t dig themselves out of a 5-1 hole despite outscoring their hosts, 6-3, in the second half. UMass found itself on the other end of the spectrum in its matchup against the Crimson, blowing an 8-4 advantage with 5:39 left in the third quarter as Harvard scored five unanswered goals to steal a win away from the Minutemen.
Cannella said the seniors and experienced players are sending the right message of winning in practice in order to win in the games.
“I think what they’re saying is, ‘Hey if we don’t win today [in practice], we can’t win on Saturday. So we need to practice well today and be focused today on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday [and] Friday in order to be prepared for Saturday,’” he said.
So far, UMass has answered the call, and with further road tests at No. 13 Penn State, No. 19 Drexel and reigning Colonial Athletic Association champions Delaware, the Minutemen will need to continue to incorporate that philosophy if they hope to return to the NCAA tournament.
Stephen Sellner can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @MDC_Sellner.
