Tuesday, March 10, 2009

BULLDOGS FALTER AGAINST NO. 14/18 LOYOLA, FALL, 15-11, DESPITE HALFTIME LEAD

Boxscore

BALTIMORE - Despite a hat trick from junior Bryant Amitrano (Valley Stream, N.Y.) and a 6-4 halftime lead, the Bryant University men's lacrosse team couldn't hold on for the win against No. 14/18 Loyola College Tuesday afternoon, falling, 15-11, at Diane Geppi-Aikens Field.

The Bulldogs (4-3) got off to a good start, taking an early 2-0 lead right out of the gates, as Amitrano notched his first pair of the afternoon to get the game going. His first tally came 4:37 into the contest when his hard juke caught up the Greyhound defense long enough for the junior middie to penetrate and score, putting the Bulldogs up, 1-0. His second goal came 4:21 later when he curled around the cage and put a shot on up high that found net over goalkeeper Jake Hagelin's head. Both goals were unassisted.

The Greyhounds (4-2) capitalized on a Bryant offsides, closing the gap to 2-1 with 2:06 to play, the goal scored by Jake Willcox, before Amitrano opened the second quarter with his third tally of the day, this time from Kevin Hoagland (Glastonbury, Conn.) after a long Bulldog possession.

"We talked to the team ahead of time, and we said that we're gonna need contributions from other players [than Zack Greer]," said head coach Mike Pressler. "And there he was, getting our first three goals. You just gotta just say to Bryant that that's a job well done."

Just seven seconds later, faceoff specialist Andrew Hennessey (Wading River, N.Y.) won at the X - one of 22 wins out of 30 opportunities on the day - and carried the ball down field, bouncing a shot that would come up behind the goalie to give the Bulldogs a 4-1 edge with 13:09 to play in the first half. It was Hennessey's first of the year.

"It's so fitting for Andrew to do that because it follows suit of all the great plays he's made over the last eight games," Pressler said. "For him to come up and score that fourth goal to go up, 4-1 - was I surprised? Not really. He's our MVP of this season so far and if there's a better faceoff specialist out there we have yet to see him."

Loyola evened it up at 4-4 with consecutive goals from Tyler Gale, Cooper MacDonnell and Jimmy Daly, before senior captain Bryan Kaufmann (Putnam Valley, N.Y.) and the Bulldogs spend the final 1:33 of the second frame orchestrating two more tallies for a two-goal advantage entering the half.

"That was just battling back," said Pressler. "I told the guys beforehand, 60 minutes is eternity and those two-, three-goal leads can be absorbed in a matter of minutes, if not seconds."

The first of Kaufmann's two tallies came unassisted from the senior attackman when he came from behind the net, thanks to a Zack Greer (Whitby, Ont.) screen, for a quick shot over the shoulder and the 5-4 edge. Kaufmann would score again with just 35.1 ticks left on the clock off a feed from Hoagland to send Bryant into the break leading, 6-4.

"I thought at 6-4 it really could be 7-4 or 8-4," said Pressler. "Greer misses a breakaway, and I also think we gave them a couple of the goals they scored. Also, [freshman goalie] Jameson Love was tremendous in the first half. He certainly kept us in it.

"But we knew Loyola would have a response," he added.

But the Greyhounds came out with a new look to open the second half, trading Hagelin in for senior Alex Peaty between the pipes.

"I might have done the same thing because we didn't have a lot of shots and we scored on the ones we had," said Pressler of the switch. "That might be the spark you need.

"But I don't think that had anything to do with it," he continued. "It came down to us in the second half not taking care of the ball."

Loyola gave their new goalie offensive support right off the bat, scoring three goals and commanding the offensive play to take their first lead of the game, 7-6, with 3:43 to play in the third period.

Greer scored his first of two on the day - his 18th and 19th of the season - with 3:31 left off a Hoagland helper to knot the score, but the Bulldogs couldn't keep the Greyhounds at bay for long.

With 1:55 showing in the third, junior Collin Finnerty took a Shane Koppens feed and drove it home to retake a one-score advantage, 8-7, entering the final 15 minutes.

"The game was on," said Pressler. "Whether you're up or down or not doesn't really matter. The game is gonna be decided by who keeps playing. Opportunity was there and Loyola seized the moment."

But the bleeding wouldn't stop when the Bulldogs' lackluster third period did.

Daly bounced in a goal at 13:42 to give the home side two goals to play with before Greer hooked up with a wide open Hoagland in front of the cage to narrow the gap to 9-8 in the home team's favor.

Back-to-back Loyola goals in a 24-second span drove the score to 11-8, but when sophomore Anthony Iannello (Lake Ronkonkoma, N.Y.) forced a big turnover, Larson picked up the ground ball and let loose a shot that found net for an unassisted goal and an 11-9 score.

The trend continued as the Greyhounds netted two more - this time just five seconds apart - before the Bulldogs answered with one, an unassisted goal from freshman Max Weisenberg (Long Beach, N.Y.), for a 13-10 score.

And when Larson turned the ball over off an unforced miscue with just 1:16 to go, Loyola made the Bulldogs pay with another pair of goals, 15-10.

Greer would hammer one more home off the inbound from Hoagland with 17.8 seconds remaining, but it would only be enough to close the gap to a 15-11 final.

"I was very disappointed, because we had a great opportunity to pull this one off," said Pressler. "We were right in it at 9-8, at 11-9, but to beat a big team like that you gotta make big plays. They did and we didn't, especially down the stretch.

"At the end of the day, this was a tough test for us," he added. "We had one day of rest. We didn't have as fresh of legs and we knew that going in."

Freshman Jameson Love (Darien, Conn.) had another strong outing in goal for the Bulldogs, stopping a career-high 13 shots while Hennessey went 22-for-30 on faceoff opportunities and Greer hit three posts on eight shots. Bryant struggled for the first time this season in clearing the ball, as the Bulldogs were successful just 12-of-18 chances. Bryant went 0-for-2 on extra-man opportunities and got outshot, 40-26, with 27 turnovers. The Bulldogs won a slight edge in ground balls, thanks to 12 from Hennessey, 38-37.

"I think when you play a team that's a favorite, what you try to do is do a great job doing what you do best, and you also can't turn the ball over 20-plus times and expect to beat these guys," said Pressler. "At the end of the day, when the game was being decided, we made the turnovers that made the difference.

"[After the game] I told them that we were certainly proud of our effort - we had some individuals that just played so hard today - but we had some that didn't play as hard," Pressler said. "And for us to pull off an upset like this, we have to have 20 or 25 guys play as one and play with that passion, and we didn't have enough of that today. Loyola was better today when it mattered most."

The Bulldogs must now gear up for an even bigger matchup the coming Sunday, when they travel to College Park, Md. for a 1 p.m. matchup against the No. 7/5-ranked Terps of the University of Maryland.

"The best thing about the Maryland game for us is that we have four days to prepare, and for us that's an eternity," Pressler said. "We'll be ready, we'll be rested and this is Virginia all over again. This is a top-2 or top-3 team in the country on their home field. What a great opportunity to end Spring Break."