At the fourth game of the season, and the first home game, the men’s lacrosse team fell 7-6 to Wagner College at Scully-Fahey Field for the first time in program history. While the Seahawks improved to 2-3, the Big Green falls to 0-4.
Although ultimately ending in a Seahawk victory, the close score does not do justice to describe the overall narrative of the game. The match against Wagner was in the Big Green’s favor for the majority of the time until the Seahawks just managed to secure a lead with less than 21 seconds left in the game.
The match between the Seahawks and Big Green started off pretty evenly between the two rival teams. It took nearly 12 minutes of the first period and 15 shots from both teams before either team scored a single goal. Progress was finally made at 12:13 minutes into the first quarter when Wagner’s Paul DeVita successfully scored a goal.
Wiley Osborne ’17 had the opportunity to tie the first quarter a minute and a half later after the first goal, but his shot just narrowly missed the net and ended up tragically bouncing off the crossbar.
Osborne redeemed himself in the second quarter by scoring three of his four goals for the day, giving the Big Green a one-point lead over the Seahawks at the end of the quarter. Osborne impressively ripped through Wagner’s defensive plays and scored the team’s first two goals with just an eight second interval between both shots.
Austin Meacham ’19 assisted Osborne on his first goal. Osborne’s second and fourth goals, however, were unassisted while Don Stephan ’17 assisted Osborne’s third.
In the third quarter of the game, the Big Green continued to hold the lead. Both teams continued to trade goals one by one until Wagner finally scored two goals in a row to tie up the match 5-5. With seconds left in the third quarter, time was ticking away and the Big Green would have to act fast if they wanted to gain a lead. Luckily, Dartmouth’s goalkeeper Blair Friedensohn ’16 made a beautiful long clear pass to Evan Key ’18, who was able to successfully sink in the ball with just six seconds left in the quarter.
The game was flipped on its head in the last quarter. With the score in Dartmouth’s favor, the Big Green shifted its focus on defense rather than offense to hold its lead, which may have been the downfall for the Big Green.
“We may have paid too much attention to the defense down the stretch and that was what ultimately led to Wagner’s victory,” head coach Brendan Callahan said.
With 2:36 minutes left of the final quarter of the game, Wagner’s Billy Martin was able to tie the score 6-6, causing the Big Green to lose the lead it tried so hard to hold onto. Unfortunately, the Seahawk surge did not stop there. With less than 21 seconds left in the match, Wagner’s Andrew Streilein pierced through Dartmouth’s defense and scored against the Big Green, giving the Seahawks a one-point lead, that would cost the Big Green the game.
Overall, Osborne was the only player on the Big Green to score multiple goals in the game, while four other of the Big Green players scored one point each. Nevertheless, the game was a fight to the bitter end, and the Big Green is ready to get back in action on Saturday, March 19 against the University of Michigan.
“Our guys put out a great effort today,” Callahan said. “I thought our fight was there for the entire game. Wagner also played a hard and good game. We need to continue to get better with our stick work and our execution. Some of things Wagner did kept us on our heels and by the time we started to attack, it was too late. I give a lot of credit to them for the way they came in and played.”
Correction appended (March 8, 2016):
The original version of this article incorrectly counted a Feb.6 scrimmage as the first game of the season. Therefore, thefirst home game against Wagner College was the fourth game of the season, not the fifth as originally stated.
