Men's Lacrosse Drops Road Contest at Hofstra

A goal from freshman attackman Devin Dwyer tied up the score, 3-3, in the opening of the third quarter, bringing Harvard men’s lacrosse (1-2) back into its game against Hofstra (3-1) on Saturday in Hempstead, N.Y.

But the Crimson failed to tally another point until the final minutes while the Pride netted seven consecutive goals to secure the win, 10-5.

Hofstra’s sophomore midfielder Mike Malave opened the scoring with an unassisted goal in the second minute of the match.

The goal was the lone point of the first quarter, but the start of a three-goal streak for the Pride heading into the second frame.

Hofstra capitalized on a man-up situation in the opening minute of the second quarter when junior midfielder Drew Coholan scored off an assist from freshman attackman Sam Llinares to bring the score to 2-0. An unassisted goal from junior attackman Torin Varn extended the Pride lead to three goals.

Hofstra’s junior ended up completing a hat trick in the contest to lead all scorers.

“We had a rough day shooting,” Dwyer said. “The goalie made a couple good saves…but we are really going to be working on our shooting every day.”

Harvard finally put points up on the scoreboard when junior attackman Danny Eipp found the back of the net after an unassisted drive toward goal. The Crimson offense rallied and recorded two more points in the next ten minutes, the first of which came from senior midfielder Alex White, who handled an assist from Eipp in the 12th minute of the second frame.

“At the beginning of the game, we made some great stops on defense,” captain Jason Gonos said. “I think we were playing some of the best defense we’ve played all year. During halftime, we felt pretty good about our position because they scored the first goal but we felt like we made some good stops on defense, and on offense we were putting up some goals. We had shown that we could play with them and we could definitely beat them, and I still believe we can beat them, but they definitely got the best of us [today].”

Dwyer leveled the score in the first minute of play in the third quarter, but the Pride answered with seven consecutive goals to hold a comfortable lead for the remainder of the match.

“We really just needed to get possession of the ball,” Dwyer said. “We didn’t really get that much possession. They were doing a good job on defense, but once we got the ball we knew we had to slow it down a little, get the ball around, and just play our game.”

Varn finished off his hat trick with two back-to-back goals in the fifth and tenth minutes of the third frame. Coholan chipped in another goal, and Llinares executed an unassisted goal in the final 14 seconds of the frame, while the Pride was a man down.

“We had a pretty solid first and second quarter, and then in the third quarter we kind of unraveled a little bit,” Gonos said. “They started scoring some goals, they went on a little run, and we really just kind of couldn’t stop it. It kind of seemed like we were compiling errors on the offensive and defensive side, so basically they went on that run and we couldn’t really stop it.”

After two more man-up goals, Hofstra finished the game going three of six in extra-man situations, while Harvard failed to find the net in each of its four opportunities.

In the closing eight minutes, Dwyer pocketed a goal and sent an assist to Eipp who netted the final point of the contest, bringing the final score to 10-5.

“We are going to continue working on all the little things like groundballs, shooting, and watching film and learning from what we did wrong to get better,” Dwyer said.

Dwyer and Eipp tallied the most offensive points—three each—in the matchup while junior attackman Peter Schwartz and White led the Crimson in turnovers forced, creating four and three, respectively.

“We need to work on hitting our shots,” Gonos said. “Defensively, we need to make those stops when [our opponents] go on those runs. We need to make sure that we do all the little things right and come up big against those runs to get some momentum our way.”

—Staff writer Kelley Guinn McArtor can be reached at kelleyguinnmcartor@college.harvard.edu. Follow her on Twitter @KGMCrimson.