The Massachusetts men’s lacrosse seniors were given one final chance to keep their playoff hopes alive on Saturday.
With 13.9 seconds left in regulation and the game tied 8-8, UMass assistant coach Brian Jacovina called a play out of the timeout designed for the seniors to win the game.
Bobby Tyler would start with the ball at the top of the box, forcing the Hofstra defense to slide toward the play. Tyler would then push the ball ahead to Will Manny at the X behind the goal and Manny would find Colin Fleming over the top for the game-winner.
It worked to perfection.
Fleming received the pass from Manny from behind the net, dodged a poor defensive approach, closed his eyes and fired one past Pride goalkeeper Chris Selva with 5.9 seconds to play to clinch the 9-8 win at James Shuart Stadium.
“It’s something we’ve practiced. Brian Jacovina got them in the right set, got the right people handling the ball.” UMass coach Greg Cannella said. “Those three seniors executed on the field but give the credit to Brian and his preparation during the week in practice especially.”
The Minutemen (6-7, 1-4 Colonial Athletic Association) now need a win against Delaware on Friday as well as losses from both Hofstra and Saint Joseph’s to clinch the final CAA postseason bid.
The moment was especially big for Fleming, who has struggled greatly in his senior year after missing five games with an ankle injury earlier this season. The midfielder only had one goal heading into Saturday’s contest, but capitalized when it mattered most.
“It felt pretty cool,” Fleming said. “I don’t think I’ve ever scored a game-winning goal plus I’ve been on quite a drought this season so I felt like I owed it to my team. I felt like I was letting them down for a couple weeks there so it felt good to finally just sort of back them up.”
Fleming also scored 48 seconds into the fourth quarter off a feed by Tyler to knot the score at 7-7 after the Minutemen trailed by as many as four goals in the first half.
Connor Mooney then gave UMass the lead with 8:47 to play as Manny registered one of his six assists for the game in the sequence.
The Minutemen held their ground from there, attacking on the offensive end, but couldn’t get another one by the CAA’s top goalie – Selva – who finished with 17 saves.
The Pride (7-6, 2-3 CAA) tied it with 1:52 to play on a goal by Brian von Bargen. And after regaining possession on the ensuing faceoff, Hofstra failed to get a shot on target, leaving it to UMass’ seniors to get the job done.
“It’s good for them for sure and their confidence, but that’s what I expect out of our seniors every year,” Cannella said. “You expect those guys to make big plays at big times of the game and to do that with confidence and fortunately they did that for us (Saturday).”
UMass jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead 38 seconds into the game on a goal by Kyle Smith, but Hofstra responded with five unanswered goals to take a 5-1 advantage.
The Minutemen cut the deficit to 6-3 at the half and – led by a Grant Whiteway hat trick and 13 big saves from Zachary Oliveri – found themselves down by just a goal after three quarters of play.
“First half it was tough to get into a flow of things, there were tons of penalties, we had trouble clearing the ball,” Fleming said. “Second half we just cleared the ball 100 percent, limited the penalties a little so we had a couple more offensive possessions which obviously helped us out.”
Cannella said it was just a matter of execution.
“It hasn’t been a lack of effort this year, it’s been a lack of execution,” he said. “And (Saturday) we executed in the second half and that was the difference in the game.”
Nick Canelas can be reached at [email protected] and followed on Twitter @NickCanelas.
