In a game with poor weather and a difficult opponent, the Massachusetts men’s lacrosse team fell to Boston University on Saturday, 12-6.
The Minutemen (2-1) had to battle through the snowy conditions throughout the afternoon as well as the ferocious defense of the Terriers (2-1). Ultimately, UMass was outplayed by BU in multiple aspects of the game, including shots, ground balls, and faceoffs, resulting in a tough loss.
“We got out-toughed by BU, in terms of their ability to get a lot of the ground balls,” head coach Greg Cannella said. “If you’re going to win a game like that in this kind of weather, you’re going to need to out-scrap people and they were really good there so you gotta give them a lot of credit.”
Throughout the game the Terriers time and time again made the plays they needed to control the possession and tempo of the matchup. BU won the ground ball battle 35-25 and went 11-for-20 on faceoffs. BU’s ability to control both the ground balls and faceoffs fueled their offense, allowing the Terriers to put up 48 shots against Matt Knote, compared to just 26 shots for UMass.
“They have an outstanding attack unit, but I thought we played good enough [defense] to be in the game,” Cannella said.
BU started strong in the first quarter with a goal from Tommy Bourque, who had a hat trick in the game, tying a career-high in goals scored. Vince D’Alto of BU poured in five goals, recording a season high. After the Terriers built a 6-1 lead in the second quarter, they never looked back in their victory over UMass.
Offensively, the Minutemen struggled to gain momentum, especially with the cold and snowy conditions on the field and not to mention the tough defense of the visitors. Scoring was hard to come by, but Gabriel Procyk still found two goals and added one assist to lead UMass in goals, and Carter Castillo added three assists. The six points put up by the Minutemen offense was the lowest output in nearly two years, since their 9-6 loss to Delaware on April 30, 2021.
“We have to get better on offense in general,” Cannella said. “And we kind of started to play a little bit more, you saw a lot of one-and-done’s early, with one guy taking a shot, save or turnover. In the second half we moved the ball a little more and we had longer possessions, and BU did that to us the whole game.”
UMass will try to bounce back in their next matchup, next Saturday March 4 against No. 7/5 Yale at 12 p.m.
“They’re going to be a very similar type of team,” Cannella said. “Explosive on offense, good defensively, good in the goal, faceoff well … hopefully we can bounce back on a positive note.”
Marco Lopez can be reached at [email protected].
