Apparently playing on St. Patrick’s Day meant little in the way of luck for the St. John’s University men’s lacrosse team, as they suffered a 12-6 loss to Loyola Saturday afternoon at Diane Geppi-Aikens Field in Baltimore.
Fresh off of Tuesday’s narrow victory over Quinnipiac, the Red Storm came into Saturday’s game hoping to upset the No. 14 Loyola Greyhounds and improve upon their conference record. However, the loss now drops St. John’s to 2-5 on the season and 0-2 in their conference.
Loyola got off to an early start with Dan Bauers getting past goaltender Dan Goldberg for back-to-back goals, but St. John’s would answer with junior Tom Michaelsen beating ECAC defensive player of the week Alex Peaty bringing the score to 2-1 Loyola at the end of the first period.
The second period began again with consecutive goals from Bauers, who would later score twice more and end the game with a career high of six goals. The Red Storm’s Trevor Michaelsen, twin brother of Tom, had an unassisted goal nearly midway through the period. Loyola’s Andrew Spack responded by scoring about a minute later, but junior Jack Rosson’s goal in the closing seconds of the half left St. John’s trailing 5-3.
Much of the game’s action came in the third period, as Loyola scored four unanswered goals by Spack and Bauers, as well as Shane Koppens and Cory Coffman. Yet the Red Storm refused to yield and managed a brief third period rally started by Tom Manes, who scored his third goal of the season with four minutes remaining in the period.
The Michaelsen brothers followed, with Trevor scoring on an assist by Tom. Justin O’Donnell brought St. John’s back to within a three-goal deficit.
The Red Storm were shut out in the final period, though, with Koppens and Bauers scoring three times to inflate the Greyhounds cushion to six goals. Goldberg, who prior to Saturday’s game was the ECAC rookie of the week and boasted an average of 17.33 saves per game, managed only eight on the day.
St. John’s was also racked with costly penalties and turnovers, as three of Loyola’s goals came on man-up opportunities. The offense also seemed to come up short against the goaltender Peaty, who had 12 saves. Despite losing by six goals, St. John’s out-shot Loyola 32-30.
Regardless of the loss, coach Jason Miller had nothing but praise for his team. “Our guys played hard, the hardest we’ve played to date,” he said. “Loyola’s a great team [and] I’m proud of how [we] played.”
