Men’s Lacrosse | Hawks play in a new venue, find same result in loss to Bellarmine

Playing in their third different home venue in three games thus far this year, the Saint Joseph’s men’s lacrosse team again faced difficulty finding the back of the net on their way to a 10-4 loss to Bellarmine.

Attackman Sean Evans, ’10, provided most of the offense on the night for the Hawks, scoring two goals and assisting on another. Brendan Burke, ’12, and Matt Dougherty, ’12, each added one goal apiece. Unfortunately for the Hawks, this was all the offense would muster.

For the second straight time, St. Joe’s had to move their game from their home at Finnesey Field to elsewhere in the Philadelphia area.  After dropping a close 7-6 contest against Lehigh two weeks ago at Franklin Field on the Penn campus, the Hawks moved to Vidas Field at La Salle for this game due to the snow storm that took place on Thursday and Friday.

On a cold night, the offenses were anything but frozen in the first quarter. Evans opened the scoring for the game with a goal not even three minutes into play.  This goal was quickly answered by back-to-back goals from leading-scorer Sean Doyle and attackman Austin Bright for Bellarmine. 

The Hawks responded right off the draw with Burke’s marker on the assist from Evans to quickly tie the game, 2-2.  After another goal by Bellarmine, Dougherty found the back of the net off an assist from Joey D’Avanzo, ’10. One more goal by Bellarmine’s Derek Hopcroft, his second, gave the Knights a 4-3 lead after one quarter.

The second quarter started in much the same way. Bellarmine’s Luke Acton opened the second period scoring and pushed the Knight lead to 5-3 only a couple minutes in. Evans followed with a man-down goal off an assist from Keith Belson, ’11, one minute later to cut the lead to 5-4. 

From this point on, the offenses went silent, failing to score from the 11:23 mark in the second quarter until the 13:15 mark of the fourth quarter when Bellarmine’s Doyle beat Hawk goalie Griffin Ferrigan, ’12, again to open up the floodgates for the Knight offense.

The Knights scored five times in the fourth quarter to turn this close and hard-fought defensive battle into a relaxing six-goal win. Doyle led the offensive explosion for Bellarmine, scoring the first two and assisting the next two. He finished the game with three goals and two assists. 

Ferrigan, the lone bright spot for the Hawks thus far, turned in another impressive save count, stopping 13 Bellarmine shots. In three games, he has stopped 52 shots and had turned away 61.9 percent of the shots he has faced. In order for the Hawks to win, they must improve play on the offensive end. They have managed an average of five goals per game over the first three, numbers that will not keep them competitive with very many opponents. 

The road does not get any easier for the Hawks as they begin a three-game road swing. St. Joe’s will look to right the ship first against Drexel March 2. The team will follow that up with two more road games against Rutgers and Penn on March 6 and 13, respectively.