The men’s lacrosse team lost to visiting Marist College in a Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference showdown on Saturday, April 19 by a final score of 12-9.
With the loss, the blue and white fall to 0-12 overall with an 0-5 mark in the MAAC during their first season, while Marist improves to 4-8 overall including a 2-3 record in conference play.
Leading the way for MU was freshman attacker Chris Daly who posted his first career four-goal game and totaled a season-high six points. Daly currently leads the Hawks with 14 goals and 22 points on the season.
For his efforts against Marist, Daly was named the MAAC Rookie of the Week.
The blue and white jumped out to an early 2-0 lead. With an unassisted goal at the 12:59 mark, Daly was the first Hawk to score in the contest. The next goal for the Hawks was scored by freshman midfielder Kevin Osback off of a feed from freshman midfielder Eric Berger.
The Red Foxes answered right back with two goals from Joseph Radin to end the quarter with the score tied at two goals apiece. Marist scored the only goals of the second quarter as they took a 5-2 lead into the break.
The second half began like the first, with an unassisted goal by Daly just 57 seconds into the third quarter to cut the lead to 5-3. However, the Red Foxes responded with four straight goals to extend their lead to 9-3 with only 49 seconds remaining in the third period.
Daly scored his third goal of the game off of an assist from freshman midfielder Steve Murawski with 32 seconds left to cut the lead, 9-4. Although the Hawks, outscored the Red Foxes in the fourth quarter, 5-3, it was not enough to secure MU’s first victory.
Junior attacker Ryan Schwartz started the offense’s fourth quarter intensity with a goal at the 13:06 mark. The assist went to Berger. Junior midfielder and co-captain Zach Johannes scored an unassisted goal to cut MU’s deficit back to 3 with the score being 9-6.
Marist’s Colin Joka scored two goals and helped his club regain a comfortable five goal lead with only 4:56 left in the game. A few seconds later, Daly found Johannes to cut the lead to 11-7.
The Hawks clawed back to be within four goals when Daly scored his fourth goal with 1:57 remaining. Freshman midfielder Tyler Keen accounted for the final goal of the game off an assist from Daly with 1:07 left to play, as the blue and white fell to Marist, 12-9.
“I am proud of the guys and the way they fought and competed right up until the end today,” said MU head coach Brian Fisher. “We played one of our more complete games to-date, but we had some stretches that were tough to overcome. We have to find ways to stop a team’s momentum and prevent them from going on runs like that. But overall, we had great effort from our guys today.”
MU outshot Marist 41-37 in the game forcing Red Fox keeper Dave Scarcello to make 10 saves. Freshman goalie Nick Hreshko made five saves in the opening half for the Hawks, while junior net-minder Garrett Conaway made six stops in the final 30 minutes.
The Hawks return to action on Saturday, April 26 when they host Detroit as part of their Senior Day. The game is scheduled to start at 1:00 pm and is the Hawks last home game in their inaugural season.
