BOCA RATON, Fla. – After an embarassing performance in their season opener last week, Charlotte Hounds head coach Mike Cerino said he expected a much better showing in Saturday’s game against the Florida Launch.
According to the stat sheet, the Hounds achieved that goal in all but one area – the final score.
Garrett Thul scored two of his three goals during a key fourth-quarter run, and the Launch – formerly the Hamilton (Canada) Nationals franchise – won their first game of the 2014 Major League Lacrosse season 11-8 over the Hounds at FAU Stadium.
Casey Powell and Grant Kaleikau added two goals each for Florida (1-1), with four others – Josh Amidon, Roman Lao-Gosney, 2013 MLL most valuable player Kevin Crowley and Mario Ventiquattro – scoring one goal apiece.
Brett Queener, who suffered an arm injury in Florida’s loss to the Denver Outlaws last week, showed no signs of the injury in making 18 saves against the Hounds. Charlotte goalkeeper Pierce Bassett finished with 11 saves, seven coming in the first quarter.
Matt Danowski, who was held scoreless in Charlotte’s season-opening loss to the Ohio Machine, had three goals Saturday for the Hounds (0-2). Matt White, Mike Sawyer, Jake Tripucka, Dean Gibbons and Joe Cummings had one goal each.
Charlotte had been badly outplayed in its loss to the Machine, but put up vastly improved numbers against the Launch, leading in shots on goal (26 for the Hounds, 22 for Florida), ground balls (22 to 18) and even winning the faceoff battle (15 of 23).
However, the Launch jumped out to a 2-0 lead thanks to goals by Kaleikau and Ventiquattro over a 1 minute, 39 second span midway through the first quarter, and pulled ahead 3-1 by the end of the period. But the Hounds fought back in the second quarter, with White, Danowski and Gibbons all scoring to tie the score at 4-4.
That set the tone for most of the second half – Florida would pull ahead, Charlotte would fight back to tie the score – until the fourth quarter. Thul scored less than two minutes into the period to put the Launch ahead to stay, and completed the hat trick with a goal with nearly five minutes remaining.
The Launch will face the Machine next week, while the Hounds host the defending MLL champion Chesapeake Bayhawks.
