Men’s Lacrosse Routs Canisius

The men’s lacrosse team won its first home game of the season in a rainy afternoon thrashing of Canisius, 14-4. The Red scored early and often and used a six-point second period to run out to a 9-1 halftime lead over the Golden Griffins, who were not able to dig out of the sizable hole.
“A 9-1 lead at halftime was just what we needed [coming off of the loss to Virginia on Sunday],” said head coach Jeff Tambroni.
Senior midfielder John Glynn got the Red (3-1) off to a fast start; he won the opening faceoff and scored just five seconds into the game — the second-fastest goal to open a game in NCAA history. Freshman midfielder Roy Lang scored an unassisted goal three minutes later to push the Red’s lead to 2-0, but Canisius (0-3) answered back with a goal by Jimmy Haney, assisted by 2008 MAAC Rookie of the Year Nick LoCoco. LoCoco notched 2.12 assists per game in his rookie campaign, good for third in the country.
Senior captain Max Seibald scored the next two goals to put the Red up, 4-1, then senior midfielder George Calvert added a tally of his own.
The Red ran away with the game when Canisius’s Tim Rowley was called for a three-minute non-releasable penalty for illegal equipment — the team scored three goals during the man-up opportunity, two of them assisted by freshman midfielder Mitch McMichael, to push the lead to 8-1.
“So far this year [the man-up unit hasn’t] lived up to our potential,” McMichael said. “Just being more unselfish helped us today, finding that one more pass. We’re starting to move a lot better than we have in the past games.”
Despite the large margin of victory, Tambroni was not happy with the Red’s offensive play in the second half — Cornell scored just five of its points after the intermission.
“We played a very average third quarter,” he said. “Overall a very average 60 minutes of lacrosse, but that was enough to win today.”
Canisius’s defense did not offer much resistance to the Cornell attack, but the Red’s defense effectively shut down the Golden Griffins’ top players — sophomore Adam Jones and LoCoco. Jones finished with one goal on nine shots and LoCoco tallied a goal and an assist. Jimmy Haney added the other two goals for Canisius.
“We did not take them lightly, they definitely had some capable players on the offensive end,” Glynn said.
“The extra man gave us a chance today, our defense gave us a chance,” Tambroni said. “I was really disappointed with the way our offense played tonight, though. I felt like we really shut it down, guys were standing there watching each other play.”
Senior goalie Kyle Harer made seven saves and was replaced midway through the fourth quarter by senior Jake Myers, who stopped three shots in 7:14. Myers, last season’s starting goalie, saw game action for the first time yesterday following an injury to open the season.