By Ziaire Ferrell & Emma Deo
The Plattsburgh men’s lacrosse team pushed through the pouring rain but lost their conference matchup Saturday to SUNY Cortland by a lopsided score of 26-7.
Sophomore attacker Dylan Ruland opened the scoring just minutes into the game putting the Cards up 1-0. Soon after, Cortland started swiftly adding points onto the board, putting the Red Dragons up 5-2.
Cortland never gave up this lead and finished the quarter with a 7-3 advantage.
Going into the second quarter the Red Dragons held down the field continuing to score over the Cardinals keeping them in the lead with 12 points. Cardinals came back with two points scored by sophomore midfielder/attacker Peter Urso and first-year midfielder Ethan Francey.
Ending the second quarter with a score of 14-5 leaving the Red Dragons in the lead going into halftime.
“The cohesion as players was much higher, and they were more athletic,” senior face off specialist Jimbo Farrelly said. “They have a history of being a strong, athletic team.”
The third quarter continued defensive highlights from the Cards as Farrelly won the faceoff and picked up the ground ball. Senior long-stick midfielder Kyle Ruland and Urso also had caused turnovers for Plattsburgh.
“Last game was tough, but we’re working on being more aggressive and holding down our defense all throughout the game,” Jab Duval Lapaix wrote in a text.
Cortland’s Sean Kavanugh found the back of the net 11 minutes into the third quarter, keeping the Red Dragons in the lead 15-5.
Cortland continued to dominate throughout the third quarter, finishing with a 20-6 advantage over the Cards.
“There were definitely shifts in momentum throughout the game, but overall we outmatched and undersized the All-Star opponents,” Farrelly said. “But we fought to the end, even though we were still going down, our team responded to the other team’s runs by not giving up and staying in the game and not letting them get any unnecessary goals.”
Senior midfielder Ely Bruhns was able to record a fourth quarter goal for the Cards but the comeback effort was not enough as Cortland tallied six more goals and headed back west with a 26-7 win over Plattsburgh.
“I would definitely say that we could’ve done a better job to stop their momentum. There were better adjustments we could have done,” Farrelly said. “A better preparation of defense and more preparation physically for the game would’ve possibly helped us fare better against them.”
The Cards will look to use their loss against the Red Dragons as motivation for the rest of the season.
“We’re planning to be more disciplined on both ends of the field. We’re working on our defense, staying attentive to their role in the formation and offense, also sticking to the plays and taking more shot attempts,” Lapaix wrote.
The Cards are now 0-2 in the conference and 4-5 overall.
“Our focus heading into the rest of the season is being the best team we can possibly be and to defeat our next coming opponents, push each other for success on the field and off the field and to get our team into the playoffs,” Farrelly said.
