West Hartford, Conn. – The UMBC men's lacrosse team
outshot host Hartford, 49-29, but came up short, 10-6, in the final
regular season game for both squads.
The Retrievers saw their four-game winning streak halted and
fell to 6-6 on the campaign and 3-2 in the conference. Hartford
improved to 9-6, 3-2.
UMBC will travel back to face the Hawks again in the America
East Tournament semifinals on Wednesday evening, May 4. UMBC,
Hartford and Binghamton all finished the league schedule at 3-2 and
the Hawks won the three-way tiebreaker and earned the No. 2 seed on
goal differential. The Retrievers earned the No. 3 seed based on
their head-to-head win over Binghamton.
Binghamton will play at top-seeded Stony Brook on Wednesday.
UMBC junior attackman Rob Grimm (Black River, N.Y.)
led the visitors with a goal and two assists. Sophomore
attackman Scott Jones (Coquitlam, B.C) scored two goals
and sophomore midfielder Dave Brown (Coopersburg, Pa.)
added two assists.
Hartford was led by junior attackman Carter Bender, who scored
all three of his goals in the second half and added an assist.
UMBC never led, falling behind 3-0, in the first 9:49 of the
game. But the Retrievers went on a 3-0 run and tied the score on a
goal by freshman attackman Ryan Johnston (Huntingtown,
Md.) with 7:34 to play in the second quarter. After Hartford
recaptured the lead, Jones converted a quick Brown feed with 1:21
to play in the half and the score was knotted at 4-all at the
half.
But Hartford came out firing in the third quarter, again scoring
three times in the early stages of the stanza. The Hawks extended
the run to 5-0 and held the Retrievers scoreless for the first 26
minutes of the second half. Sophomore midfielder Scott
Hopmann (Annapolis, Md./St. Mary's) ended the drought on
a score with 3:54 left to pull UMBC within 9-5, but they could not
cut further into the deficit.
Hartford netminder Scott Bement made 17 saves in the game. UMBC
drew nine Hawk fouls, but only converted one of eight man-up
opportunities. UMBC junior goalkeeper Brian
McCullough (Garden City, N.Y.) made seven saves for his
side.
Each side won nine draws, but the Hawks captured six of nine in
the second half.
UMBC will participate in the America East Tournament for the
eighth time in eight league seasons.
