Despite disappointing loss, men's lacrosse contunues to look forward

Virginia Wesleyan College’s men’s lacrosse team setup an extremely difficult beginning to their 2005 season: play the two-time defending national champion and currently number one ranked team, Salisbury University. While the Marlins played an extremely physical and fast-paced game, any mistake made, no matter how big or small, against the number one team in the nation, will cost you.

Despite a hard fought game, Salisbury thumped the Marlins 20-7.

“Coach is preparing us to play with the best,” said sophomore defender Mike Canino. “Although the score didn’t show it, some positive things came out of the game. Now that Salisbury is out of the way, we are going to start rolling teams over.”

The Marlins fought tough in the opening quarter holding the Sea Gulls to just three goals. The tight game rolled into the second quarter and the Marlins finally tallied their first goal by senior midfielder Cameron McKay off an assist from senior attackman/midfielder Brendan Rooney; however Salisbury managed to put up five more points in that same quarter, making the score 8-1 at halftime.

Coming out in the second half, the Marlins seemed flat and the Sea Gulls capitalized by scoring 9 goals. VWC’s lone highlight in the third quarter was a goal scored by sophomore attackman Brian Fugazy.

“This game was pretty much better than last year’s game against Salisbury,” said sophomore Matt Lewis. “We never gave up and with only one exception of the third quarter.”

The Marlins rallied late in the fourth quarter with five goals. Junior attackman Dan Hofmeister had two, while senior midfielder Tom Vitale, junior midfielder Will Mumford and Rooney each scored a goal.

Although the Marlins didn’t come out as pumped in the third quarter, they never wavered in the face of the challenge.

“We felt like we played the beginning and the end of the game very well,” said junior midfielder Jacob Abrams. “I can honestly say, even though we lost, no one wearing white that day quit playing their hardest.”

And it shows through the statistics. Despite the lopsided score, Salisbury only had 60 groundballs to the Marlins’ 59, a .673 shot percentage compared to VWC’s .653, and the two teams tied in saves with 12 a piece.

Though the team is young, with only five seniors out of the 42 total players, the daunting task of rebounding to prepare for upcoming opponent after a crushing lose is not lost on this young group. Improvement is one of the main goals for the Marlins while preparing for this year opponents.

“We know that our next game is our most important game of the season because they are the next opponent,” said Abrams.

Although it was tough way to begin the season, the team feels very confident about their preparation and determination this season. They definitely took this game as a way to start to strong season.

“This game made us realize we can play the best teams in the country,” said Todd Evans.

The Marlin’s next game is on Feb. 26, against the Gophers of Goucher College in Baltimore, Md.