The Hofstra Pride men’s lacrosse team got their 2017 season off to a good start with a 11-9 victory over the Monmouth Hawks.
Head coach Seth Tierney commented on the season-opening victory.
“We’re really excited anytime we get a chance to win a division one lacrosse game, there’s gotta be some effort,” Tierney said. “There’s no game you go into saying ‘this is gonna be an easy victory’. After what [Monmouth] did to Villanova last week, we knew they were for real.”
The Pride’s first goal was a special one. Ryan Tierney, Seth’s son, got his career off to a great start with his first goal, the first goal for Hofstra in 2017. He scored two more goals later on to earn his first hat-trick at the D1 level.
Ryan credited his teammates for his impressive performance.
“I was very comfortable because of the people around me that had me going out, like [Brendan] Kavanagh and [Josh] Byrne, padding my back, saying ‘let’s go’,” he said. “The atmosphere of the team kept me composed.”
Kavanagh and Byrne joined Tierney with hat-tricks of their own. Alex Moeser and Tanner Griffin rounded out the scoring for the Pride.
Hofstra’s defense also played a stellar game up until the fourth quarter. On 19 opportunities to clear the ball, the Pride were successful 16 times. In addition, the Pride’s defense forced the Hawks to turn the ball over 15 times. Jack Concannon had a good performance in net, saving 11 of 20 shots on goal.
It was in the fourth quarter, however, when the game became too close for comfort. Monmouth went on a four-goal streak, bringing the game to within two. It didn’t help that the Pride offense started to struggle, with only one shot-on-goal out of seven shots.
In addition, Hofstra struggled in key stat categories, such as face-offs and extra-man opportunities. Justin Schwenk dominated the face-off circle for Monmouth, winning 15 of 21 face-offs, while the Kris Clarke-less Pride struggled to win six face-offs with Michael Diener and Kyle Gallagher. The Hawks also received six man-up opportunities, but only capitalized on two of them.
Next Saturday, Hofstra will travel to New Jersey to take on the Princeton University Tigers. The Tigers will have extra motivation for this game, as they look to avenge their overtime defeat at the hands of the Pride last year. Game time is set for 1 p.m.
