Hofstra turns back St. John's
Hofstra's Ian Braddish controls the ball in front of St. John's net during match between St. John's and Hofstra in men's lacrosse. (March 22, 2011) Credit: Patrick E. McCarthy
After suffering its first loss of the season three days before, snapping a seven-game regular-season winning streak, the Hofstra men's lacrosse team wanted a solid bounce-back performance Tuesday night.
It got one.
The Pride, ranked eighth in the USILA Division I Coaches Poll, scored the first seven goals and breezed to an 8-5 non-conference victory over St. John's at Shuart Stadium.
"It was a workmanlike effort," Hofstra coach Seth Tierney said. "There were a lot of new guys out there. If you had a crystal ball and told me I'd win every game by one, I'd take it. You can't read into scores because you don't really know what takes place. They fought to the bitter end."
Hofstra (6-1) never was threatened, staving off St. John's from the opening faceoff. The Red Storm fans didn't have much to cheer about until St. John's (1-6) scored twice in a span of 1:25.
Lynbrook product Brandon Ayers found the back of the net with 1:33 left in the third, trimming Hofstra's lead to 7-3. But Pride attackman Jamie Lincoln took a feed from midfielder Kevin Ford and scored for an 8-3 advantage with 12:45 left.
Jay Card and Stephen Bentz led Hofstra with two goals apiece. Lincoln chipped in three assists and Card contributed two for the Pride, which won 10 of 16 faceoffs but was outshot 33-27, lost the ground-ball battle 22-21 and had 19 turnovers.
Those numbers, however, are somewhat skewed because Hofstra, missing three injured starters after Saturday's one-goal loss to Delaware, played a lot of young guys who don't have much experience.
"I don't think the score showed how well we played defensively today," said Hofstra's Andrew Gvozden, who had 11 saves. "They made it look like it was closer, but I thought today was a great steppingstone after Delaware.
"We needed to get another win under our belt. We got it and now we need a CAA win really badly because we don't want to do what we did last year. So, we decided we are going to be ready come Saturday."
Said Card: "We just wanted to get momentum and I feel like this game was a good steppingstone for the Drexel Dragons because they are a great team and it's always been a tight game between us ever since I was a freshman. We got the ball rolling and now we've just got to take care of Drexel."
