The University of Rhode Island Men’s Lacrosse team’s hot start to the season came to an end after falling to Northeastern 19-10 Sunday afternoon.
Head Coach Larry Madeira had few words to describe how the team did.
“We pretty much got beaten in all four phases of the game,” Madeira said. “Catching, throwing, clearing, everything really. I will say though, our guys never gave up, they played until the end when others would’ve just thrown the towel in.”
Early on it looked like things were going to go URI’s way with a face off win by junior Nathan Winter. Unfortunately, Northeastern halted any momentum the Rams tried to gain as Huskies’ midfielder Christopher Wilk scored in under 30 seconds of the start of the game.
A couple minutes later, Northeastern’s lead would be extended with goals coming from Bradley Peterson and Trevor McNamara, giving them a 3-0 lead only three and a half minutes into the game.
The Rams managed to strike back only eight seconds later when Winter, the team’s face off specialist, won the face off and powered his way through the defense to score URI’s first goal. A penalty on URI gave Northeastern the man advantage and Peterson took advantage, scoring his second goal of the day as the Huskies led 4-1.
Both teams traded goals for the rest of the quarter. Goals scored by URI’s Keegan Reilly, Charlie White and Adrian Rutkowski helped close the gap, but Northeastern ended the quarter with a 7-4 lead.
The second quarter was all Huskies as they tacked on four more goals despite scoring all of them in the final seven minutes of the quarter. Northeastern’s Chris Balicki started the scoring, but the Rams quickly answered back when Jack Duffy got open in front of the net to score the easy goal.
From there, things went downhill for the Rams. Northeastern’s Tim Burr and McNamara both intercepted passes made by URI’s defensemen trying to clear the ball, leaving them 1-on-1 with the goalie. These goals gave them the 11-5 lead heading into the half.
Rhody struck back in the second half when White fed the ball to Anthony Guarino on a cut to the crease followed by a goal by Rams’ long-stick midfielder Ian Schermerhorn, cutting the lead down to 11-7. Answering back was Wilk when he reaffirmed the Northeastern lead at 12-7.
Midfielder Hunter LaFrance kept the Rams within striking distance with a goal of his own halfway through the third quarter, making the score 12-8. However, any comeback attempted by URI was thwarted by the Huskies as they went on an offensive assault. Goals by Anton Pace, Balicki, McNamara, Dan DeLaus and Wilk in the final few minutes of the third quarter gave the Huskies a comfortable 17-8 lead.
Duffy tried to get things back on track as he netted his second goal of the game, but the success was short lived when Zeb Tilton scored one of his four goals on the day. Then, Cam Fain brought the lead to 19-9 with just over two minutes remaining in the game.
Capping off the game was Tom King, scoring URI’s tenth goal in the loss to Northeastern.
“Playing against a team like Northeastern, it exposes our mistakes and shows what we need to work on,” Madeira said. “Up until now we haven’t played a lot of great competition, so to play against a team in a division above us showed exactly what we need to work on.”
The team’s next opponent will be division rival Bridgewater State University tonight at 7 p.m. at Meade Stadium.
“This is a big game for us, they’re a division rival and we’re usually the two teams fighting at the top [of the division],” Duffy said. “For us, we know how good we are, now we just have to prove it on the field.”