Senior co-captain Torin Varn scored a career-high six-goals and two assists to lead 14th-ranked Hofstra to a 15-10 victory over non-conference opponent Marist College Tuesday night in Hempstead.
“Really impressed with Marist’s offense and their shooters,” Head coach Seth Tierney said. “They’ve got a couple of guys that can shoot it hard.”
With the win, Hofstra improves to 8-3 overall increasing its win streak to four games in a row while Marist drops to 3-8 on the year with its fourth consecutive loss.
Varn, with a career-best eight-point game, has 21 goals on the year.
“My goals and my success really comes from the five guys who work on the perimeter,” Varn said. “I’m thankful for my teammates working inside to give me a chance.”
One of those teammates was junior Ryan Rielly who picked up nine ground balls for the Pride. Like Saturday’s game against Siena, the Pride had never faced Marist before this season, which, Rielly knew would be a tough feat no matter what the opponents record was.
“This game was going to be an effort game because we only had a couple of days to prepare,” Rielly said. “So I just kept trying to keep that in mind whenever the ball was on the floor and just give them my best effort.”
Junior Mike Malave added a hat trick and an assist while senior Drew Coholan and red-shirt sophomore Korey Hendrickson each recorded two goals and an assist, sophomore Sam Llinares had one goal, three assists, freshman Nick Altmann scored a goal and senior Lance Yapor added one assist in the win. Junior goalkeeper Chris Selva had 5 saves in the win while Eddie Collins saw a few minutes finishing with 1 save for the Pride.
Marist junior Drew Nesmith also had a six-goal game for the Red Foxes but would not be enough to defeat Hofstra. Colin Joka had two goals along with Mike Begley (1G, 1A), Joseph Radin (1G) and J.D. Recor (1A). Junior goalkeeper Dave Scarcello had 14 saves in the loss.
Hofstra’s Coholan opened up scoring for the Pride with goals from Coholan and Malave. Marist’s Begley answered back to cut the deficit to 2-1 until Hendrickson increased the Pride lead to two at 7:04 of the first.
Joka allowed the Foxes to trail by one-goal one last time, 3-2, after scoring 13:14 into the second. However, the Pride scored four goals to end the half, including three from Varn and Coholan’s second of the game. Marist’s Nesmith and Radin added goals but Hofstra had the 7-4 advantage going into the break.
After the half and a Hofstra penalty, Nesmith cut the Pride lead on the man-up to 7-5 but Hofstra answered with a 3-0 run from Malave, Llinares (man-up) and Altmann. Marist had a three-goal run as well from Nesmith (2) and Joka but Varn did not stay quiet as he finished off a pass from Coholan at 1:09.
In the final 15 minutes, Nesmith notched two more for the Red Foxes, including his sixth of the game and 27th of the season but Hofstra would add four more to secure the win. Varn scored his sixth of the game, 21st of the season off of an assist from Malave on the man-up at 5:46 while Malave finished off his hat trick at 1:45 left of regulation to earn the Pride the victory.
Hofstra outshot Marist 47-22 and won the ground ball battle 38-25. Kris Clarke won the battle at the face-off x winning 19-of-27 face-offs for the Pride.
“Really happy to be 8-3, we’ll celebrate for a few minutes and then we have a big one coming in to Shuart Stadium on Saturday.” Coach Tierney said.
Hofstra returns to action on Saturday as they host sixth-ranked Cornell University at James M. Shuart Stadium at 1 pm.
