Men's Lacrosse knocks off WPI, but falls to Briarcliffe in PCLL championship game re-match

On Saturday May 1^st the Stonehill Men’s Lacrosse team traveled to the University of New Hampshire to defend their 2009 PCLL DII championship. In the Semi-final, Stonehill was pitted against WPI who had just beaten the men from the Hill 1 week earlier in the regular season. Looking to exact some revenge, the purple and black played like a team possessed all game long. From the 1^st quarter to the last they won every ground ball battle and beat WPI up and down the field. At the end of one period it was 3-0 Stonehill with goals by Sophomore Connor Green, Junior Kevin Sacco and Senior Colin Lancey, and by halftime the lead had bulged to 7-3.

Fueled by the desire to get back to defend their conference championship Stonehill poured it on in the second half, upping their lead to 13-4 by the end of 3 quarters. The final Score was Stonehill 16-WPI 8 which meant a rematch of the 2009 PCLL Championship with Briarcliffe College. The team was led on the scoresheet for the day by Green, who tallied 3 goals and 3 assists, and Seniors Lancey, 2 goals 3 assists, and Dan Cermack with 4 goals and 1 Assist.

On Sunday, May 2^nd the team would face off against Briarcliffe college in a re-match of last year’s dramatic 4-3 victory for Stonehill, when they scored a game winner with under a minute to play. Stonehill graduated 13 seniors from that team, but behind the steady play and leadership of their new Seniors were able to get back and defend their crown.

Briarcliffe came out firing getting on the board 1^st and at the end of one had pushed their lead to 5-1. Stonehill recovered and picked up their defense in the 2^nd but still trailed 7-2 at half time. Sophomore Jimmy Barrett had a excellent day at the “X” winning 11 faceoffs and only losing 6 against one of the top faceoff guys in the conference. The offense never got going though, largely due to the excellent play of the Briarcliffe goaltender. By the end of the 3^rd Briarcliffe had an 8-4 advantage and Stonehill had to start pressuring their offense much more to try and get the ball back. In the end Stonehill just didn’t have the legs to get it done and the final would be 14-6. Anthony Powers and Tom Higgins would lead the scoring for the Hill on the day, both amassing three points each. Coach Ryan Larkin commented on the loss, “It was a tough loss for us, but I do want to say congratulations on an incredible season, especially the seniors, Dan Uyttebroek, Mike Moccia, Dan Cermack, Ben Hyder, Colin Lancey, and Tom Higgins. Without them we would have never made it back to defend our crown.”