Photo by: Michael Furman
The Pioneer men’s lacrosse team will play for the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference championship against No. 6 Loyola on Sunday at Invesco Field at Mile High.
No. 16 Denver enters the pivotal matchup winners of their last seven games, including last Saturday’s 9-8 nail bitter against No. 17 ranked Fairfield. The Pioneers came from behind, as sophomore Mark Matthews notched the game-winning goal.
“Certainly he [Matthews] played with the most fire I have ever seen him play with,” said head coach Bill Tierney. “I’m proud of him, because you know Mark is a kid who has come a long way. He’s a great player and he’s getting more and more comfortable in our system and he’s doing a great job this season.”
The Pioneers started slow. In the first quarter the team was unable to rectify a season-long problem of letting the opponent dominate. Fairfield notched the first three goals and ended the quarter with a 4-2 lead. The team came alive in the second quarter and maintained momentum for the rest of the game, never falling behind by more than two goals.
Coming out in the second half, DU outscored Fairfield 6-3. The surge was helped by freshman Chase Carraro’s dominance in the face-off circle, where he won 7-10 face-offs in the second half and 12-19 in the game.
Matthews, Alex Demopoulos, and Patrick Rogers all added a goal to the score sheet in the third quarter.
Entering the fourth quarter down a goal, freshman Colin Scott knotted the game at seven. Fairfield responded by taking the lead back at the 6:54 mark.
However, once the clock fell below the five minutes it became Mark Matthew’s time. This was the second straight week that DU entered the final five minutes without ever holding a lead. Yet once again it would not end that way. Matthews netted two goals in less than 40 seconds, one to tie and the other to win the game. The winner came with 3:58 on the clock.
The defense held the lead for the remaining time to allow the Pioneers to stay undefeated in the ECAC.
The win will mean nothing for the Pioneers if they cannot extend their win streak to eight against Loyola. Talking to any member of the team senior or freshman, it is evident to see their hunger for more.
“Our game against Loyola will definitely put us in the spot to win a league championship and then really put our name out there for NCAA and let everyone know that we’re going to make a run at this thing,” Scott said.
The Loyola game is shaping up to be the most important game in the history of Denver lacrosse. The stakes are clear, win and go to the NCAA tournament, or lose and try again next year.
For a team that is for the most part young and wholly inexperienced at a national level there are some concerns that the team may not be ready for a game of such magnitude.
“The funny thing about our team is that everyone is pretty experienced at this point after playing a good portion of the season,” said senior captain Dillon Roy. “Preparation is just having good practices all week and making sure that everyone does their job throughout.”
Loyola brings their own six game winning streak to Denver on Sunday. In addition they have a 9-2 record and remain undefeated in the ECAC. Also they have three wins against top 20 teams.
The good news for DU is that Tierney is no stranger to pressure filled games. His career speaks for itself. He has won six national championships, coached in eight title games and 10 final fours.
“We have to keep the players from being overly burdened,” said Tierney about keeping the players loose before game. “We are going to keep the approach light, let them have fun at practice but let them do their work and hope that they realize that if they go out and play the way they are capable of playing, then the sky is the limit.”
With Tierney at the helm and the entire team clicking on all cylinders it appears that the sky really is the limit.
“At this point it is not really about anyone else it is about us knowing what we have to do. We have been doing it so we just got to keep rolling,” Matthews said.
With seven straight under their belts and a chance to qualify for their first ever NCAA tournament, the Pioneers seem to know what they have to do to make their dreams a reality.
