BALTIMORE- The third-seeded Albany men's lacrosse
team (5-10) advanced to the finals of the America East
Championships with a 19-8 victory over the host No. 2 UMBC
Retrievers (5-8).
The Great Danes will meet top-seeded Stony Brook in Stony
Brook, N.Y. on Saturday for the league championship and
automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Juniors Scott
Jones (Port Coquitlam, B.C.) and Scott
Hopmann (Annapolis, Md./St. Mary's) and
sophomores Matt
Gregoire (Crofton, Md./South River) and Zach
Linkous (Jarrettsville,Md./St. Paul's) each scored two
goals for UMBC.
Junior Joe
Lustgarten (Wading River, N.Y.) ran his streak of
multiple-assist gmes to nine with four helpers in the game. His 29
assists on the season is tied for the 13th-best in
school history.
Albany's Miles Thompson and Lyle Thompson scored five goals
apiece for the visitors and America East Player of the Year Joe
Resetarits added four.
Jones actually gave UMBC 1-0 lead just 27 seconds into the
proceedings, when Lustgartnen intercepted an Albany clearing pass
and fed his linemate for quick score. But Albany would go
on a 4-1 run to take a 4-2 lead on Miles Thompson's second of
back-to-back goals with 6:33 remaining in the quarter.
Linkous scored on a 15-yard rocket to trim UMBC's deficit to 4-3
with 5:27 to play in the quarter, but Ty Thompson answered with
three seconds left to give the Danes a 5-3 lead after 15
minutes.
The second quarter belonged to the visitors as they extended
their run to 6-0 by scoring all five second quarter goals.
Trailing 10-4 at the break, UMBC again struck early in a
quarter, as Gregoire scored from in close after a long pass from
sophomore face-off specialist Phil
Poe (Harwood, Md./DeMatha) just 40 seconds into the
quarter. Albany countered with a pair of goals, but when
Hopmann responded with a man-up goal, UMBC had some hope, trailing,
12-5, with 3:44 remaining in the quarter.
Just 11 days earlier, UMBC rallied from a five-goal deficit with
less than six minutes remaining to defeat Albany, 17-16, in
overtime. But the Danes went on a 7-1 run over 10 minute span to
put the contest out of reach.
UMBC outshot Albany, 39-29 and won the face-off battle,
19-11. But the Danes scored on 19 of those 29 attempts as starting
netminder Adam
Cohen (Arnold, Md./Severn) made four saves for the
Retrievers. UA freshman Max Huber went the route and stopped 11
UMBC shots.
The Retrievers did convert on 4-of-6 man-up opportunities, but
three were in the fourth quarter.
