The SUNY New Paltz men’s lacrosse team was back at it for another home game, this time versus the Bard College Raptors. At 3 p.m. on Saturday, March 7, first-year Nate Lindsey took his spot at the goal post, signifying the start of another exciting match.
First-year midfielder Jake Malloy won the opening faceoff for the Hawks, allowing first-year attackman Thomas Armetta the opportunity to score the first goal of the game, assisted by second-year attackman Justin Pollak. A few minutes later a Raptor scored a goal, tying the game early at one.
In the second quarter, the Raptors were shooting early, and Lindsey managed to save three. However, Bard kept shooting and managed to squeeze in two goals within just over thirty seconds of each other.
Five minutes passed and Bard scored twice more, proving the Hawks were going to need a lot of stamina to try and get back into the game. The Hawks found the momentum they needed, and Armetta scored two in a row, unassisted. With 34 seconds left, first-year attack Ryan Scully found the back of the cage to bring the score to 5-4, Bard. With seven seconds in the second quarter, Bard added one more point to their tally.
Pollak started it off in the third, getting a goal at 14:49. The scoring went back and forth in the third, with each team taking turns scoring one. For New Paltz, Armetta scored another, along with first-year midfielder Aiden Jones, assisted by first-year midfielder Aidan Gregory. To end the third, Scully scored another goal assisted by Gregory and tie the match at eight.
Although Bard snagged the first goal of the fourth quarter, New Paltz fought hard to stay alive. During this quarter the match tied up three separate times. For the Hawks, first-year midfielder Zach Schmidt scored a goal assisted by Scully, then Scully scored his third goal of the game assisted by Jones, and Armetta tacked on one more goal of his own. New Paltz had the lead and was close to securing the win, but at 2:47 the Pioneers tied the game at 11. The teams were now heading into overtime.
In sudden death, it was Bard who managed to score the final goal of the game to hand New Paltz a 12-11 overtime loss. New Paltz had more saves than Bard, 18-17, more turnovers 17-13, and more ground balls 28-18.
“We put up a good fight, just didn’t go out way in the end,” Armetta said. “Starting off a new season is never easy, especially since this team has never played together before.”
Armetta said learning to build a foundation for the team is the goal. “With that goal comes mistakes and errors to be made,” he said. “But that is the only way we can learn to fix them and create chemistry amongst our team and strive to build up a great program.” Armetta said they will figure out what works through trial and error so that in the end they can win games.
Over spring break, New Paltz will be traveling to Florida to face Keene State. Looking ahead at the season, on March 19 at 4 p.m., the Hawks will host SUNY Delhi. New Paltz has four more games before conference matchups begin.
