The Colonial Athletic Association will finish its championship series on Saturday as top-seeded Hofstra and second-seeded Drexel University battle for the conference title at James M. Shuart Stadium in Hempstead, NY.
Hofstra has been the number one seed in the CAA tournament four times and has only one championship win in 2006 as the top-seeded team. The Pride’s most recent CAA title was a 10-9 overtime victory against Drexel in 2008 under the direction of current head coach Seth Tierney.
Drexel, the second seed for the second year in a row, is making its third straight and eighth overall appearance in the tournament. Since 2008, the Dragons have advanced to the title game twice and are looking to win the program’s first CAA championship title.
The CAA announced its 2014 Men’s Lacrosse postseason awards Thursday afternoon and Coach Tierney was named the 2014 CAA Coach of the Year along with nine other Pride players receiving honors from the conference.
Pride players named to the all-CAA first team were sophomores Sam Llinares and Finn Sullivan and Ryan Rielly, on the second team, seniors Torin Varn and Drew Coholan and junior Chris Selva, freshmen Kris Clarke and Stephen Satterthwaite were both named to the All-Rookie team and senior Lance Yapor made the All-Academic team.
For Drexel, senior midfielder Ben McIntosh was selected as the 2014 CAA Men’s Lacrosse Player of the Year by a vote of the conference’s six head coaches. McIntosh led the league with 38 goals and 113 shots ranking third in the conference with 3.50 points per game with 11 assists helping the 16th-ranked Dragons end the season 10-4, overall and 4-1 in the CAA.
In the CAA semi-finals, the Pride started out slow in a relentless rainstorm but managed to defeat the University of Delaware 8-6. Hofstra had contributions from the back end as long-stick midfielder Ryan Rielly scored two goals, the second being a game changer to bring the Pride within one 16 seconds into the third and give the Pride the boost they needed to score four more consecutive goals in the third. Hofstra also saw the return of defensive midfielder John Reicheter who scored his second goal of the season who had missed nine games due to injury.
The most recent semi-final game resulted in Drexel defeating Towson 11-10 in overtime. Dragons Ryan Belka scored 1:27 into overtime to finish off the three-goal rally late in the fourth that allowed Drexel to tie it up and send the contest into extra minutes. Towson had a key chance to win in regulation after a Drexel turnover with 0:16 seconds to go, but was unable to capitalize as the buzzer sound. After a slow start for both teams in the fourth quarter, McIntosh started the comeback to cut the three-goal deficit to 9-7. Quickly after he had another goal that was followed 0:48 seconds later by freshman Cole Shafer to tie the game. Both teams evened out scoring with two each to tie it up 10-10 at the end of 15 minutes. Junior Nick Saputo had a strong performance at the “X” as he won 19 of 22 faceoffs picking up 11 ground balls.
The last time Hofstra and Drexel met, Coholan scored a career-high five goals and Selva had a season-high 13 saves to help the Pride earn an 11-9 victory in the inauguaral HEADstrong Foundation Hero Bowl in Philadelphia. The game marked many runs for both teams as the Pride had an early 3-0 lead in the first quarter but was answered by three unanswered Drexel goals to tie it up. After the Pride took the 8-4 lead in the third, Drexel scored four more goals to tie it up at 8-8. Coholan scored the game-winning goal en route to the Pride victory.
The championship game will be played at James M. Shuart Stadium in Hempstead, NY at 7 pm.
