Coming off a 13-9 loss to Drexel a week ago, the Massachusetts men’s lacrosse team lost its third straight game, falling to Hofstra 11-6 on Senior Night at Garber Field.
The Minutemen (7-5, 1-3 Colonial Athletic Association) trailed 4-3 with under 12 minutes to play in the second quarter when senior Connor Mooney delivered the play of the day, making a tremendous effort to keep the ball in play which led to a Grant Whiteway goal to tie the game at 4-4.
However, UMass could not rally around that play, and didn’t sustain any offensive pressure from the first face-off of the game up until the final whistle. The Pride (10-3, 4-0 CAA) received a five-goal performance from junior midfielder Mike Malave on their way to clinching the top seed in the upcoming conference tournament.
Malave opened the scoring just 40 seconds into the game and Hofstra attacker Torin Varn added two more goals in the next six minutes.
Falling behind quickly in any game is never a good thing, and doing so proved to be costly for the Minutemen. UMass coach Greg Cannella said that despite playing solidly on the defensive end, the combination of being unable to put the ball in the net and not winning the face-offs hurt the team.
“We were playing pretty good defense, but we were playing a lot of defense,” Cannella said. “Tonight we weren’t winning face-offs, so that put an extra stress on us.”
Although the Minutemen were outshot 38-25, senior defender James Fahey felt that the game was there for the taking, especially after coming back from a 3-0 deficit against the CAA’s top team.
“These games happen all the time, every game you can have moments where the offense possesses more and vice versa,” he said. “This was one of those games where it was definitely there, we just didn’t execute as well as we had drawn up.”
Following the opening blitz from Hofstra, UMass answered with two goals from Gianni Bianchin and Rob Lynott. It was Bianchin’s first of his career, with Lynott tallying his fourth of the season. Also scoring for the Minutemen were Jeff George, Nick Mariano, and Brendan Schroeder.
Despite giving up 11 goals, it was redshirt goalkeeper Zach Oliveri who kept UMass in the game defensively, making a total of 15 saves. Fahey said that Oliveri really kept the team in it and made some clutch saves along the way.
“Zach made some great saves, you know he really stood on his head and made some unbelievable saves on some unbelievable shots and helped us out on defense and keeping us in the game,” Fahey said.
When asked about his team’s offensive struggles, Cannella said that it’s a combination of who the opponent is coupled with the team’s inexperience, as several younger players continue to receive valuable time out on the field.
“We played Drexel last week who is a very good team and Hofstra this week who is a very good team, so we have to give credit to those guys,” he said. “We’re not there yet as a team, and some of our guys need to get better.”
For Cannella, these past three weeks have shown him a lot about his team, as he continues to figure out what works and what needs improvement.
“These guys have hung in there and they’ve worked hard,” he said. “It’s not like we haven’t had the effort in practice, but we just haven’t gotten it done game days.”
The Minutemen’s season comes down to one game versus Delaware next Friday, with the winner clinching the final spot in the CAA tournament.
Jason Kates can be reached at [email protected].
