March 31, 2007

BRYANT MEN DEFEAT SAINT MICHAEL'S 10-3
Hoagland Scores Five In Bulldog Win

BOXSCORE 

Junior Michael Kennedy made 14 saves to help lead the Bryant men's lacrosse team to a 10-3 win over Saint Michael's Saturday afternoon. www.dspics.com

SMITHFIELD, R.I.  -  Kevin Hoagland (Glastonbury, Conn.) scored five goals while junior goalkeeper Michael Kennedy (Port Jefferson Station, NY) made 14 saves in net to lift the Bryant University men's lacrosse team to a 10-3 Northeast-10 Conference win over visiting Saint Michael's Saturday afternoon at the Bryant Turf Complex.

The win for Bryant was the team's fourth in-a-row after an 0-2 start to the season.  More importantly, the win improves the Bulldogs' record to 3-0 in the Northeast-10 Conference as the Bulldogs remain tied with Southern NH (1-0 NE-10) atop the standings.  Saint Michael's (4-3, 3-1 NE-10) saw its four game win streak come to an end Saturday as the Purple Knights also dropped their first conference game of the season.  

Bryant (4-2, 3-0 NE-10) came out a little sluggish at the outset as Saint Michael's, looking to slow the pace of the game down, scored two minutes into the game as Mike Ferrarone (South Salem, NY) beat Kennedy with a quick shot to put the visitors up 1-0. 

Costly turnovers in the first quarter prevented the Bulldogs from sustaining any offensive rhythm.  With under three minutes left in the first, the Bulldogs would finally break through as junior defenseman Vince Zorskas (Port Washington, NY) raced through the Purple Knight defense with an quick clear and got the ball to Hoagland who riffled a shot past Saint Michael's goalkeeper Jeff Hannon (Wilbraham, Mass.) to knot the game up at 1-1. 

The goal helped kick start a five-goal second quarter for Bryant as the Bulldogs took better care of the ball and opened the game up with an offensive outburst.  Brad Burton (Hauppauge, NY) scored an unassisted goal at the 10:10 mark to put the Bulldogs ahead 2-1.  Matt McKeefrey (Melville, NY) would score on a man-up situation only to be followed by Hoagland's second of the quarter and third of the game after putting a nice move on Hannon alone in front of the net to make it 5-1. 

"That was a very important game for us coming off the Le Moyne game last week," said Bryant coach Mike Pressler.   " You have to make a team like that play from behind.  They had to force the play which was to our advantage.  SMC had a good game plan, but we started to get some face-offs and scored some extra man goals and we'll take it."

"We can't control what they do, we have to control what we do," added Pressler.   "Once we got it down there, we knew we were going to get our opportunities."

The Bulldogs would stretch the lead to 9-2 after three quarters and never looked back.  Kennedy, this week's Northeast-10 Conference Goalkeeper of the Week made four saves in the first quarter after the Ferrarone goal and came up with five more in the fourth to finish with 14 on the afternoon."

"The player of the game was Mike Kennedy," added Pressler.  "That was his best game of the year.  He made some key saves for us and played very well today. 

Greg Lazarus (Evanston, ILL) had a pair of goals to lead Saint Michael's as Hannon finished with 12 saves.  Saint Michael's out-shot the Bulldogs 34 to 32 and won 10 of 16 face-offs. 

Bryant will travel to Merrimack College next Saturday for a 1 p.m. game in North Andover, Mass.  Saint Michael's will host Adelphi this Wednesday for a non-conference game in Burlington, Vt.