Home field advantage was non-existent for the Marquette men’s lacrosse team Tuesday night as they fell 10-7 to Bellarmine.
Bellarmine (5-4, 0-4), entered the game following a loss in its final conference game that eliminated it from a conference tournament berth. Marquette (3-7, 1-1) was coming off of its first conference win and looked to turn the corner in the final stretch of its season.
Instead, the team took a step back.
“It wasn’t a close game; Bellarmine was in complete control from the start,” coach Joe Amplo said. “We played a little bit unpoised, and that’s what happens when you don’t come out excited and urgent … when things don’t go your way you’re going to play a little tighter, and I think that’s what happened to us.”
Marquette didn’t show up ready to play. Despite scoring the first goal of the game, the team committed four penalties in the opening quarter and allowed four unanswered goals. Marquette struck twice more before the half, but trailed 5-3 at the break.
One of the penalties in the first quarter came from sophomore faceoff specialist Paul Riportella, whose three faceoff violations earned him a minute in the box. At the end of the quarter, Riportella was 0-for-5 at the x and redshirt sophomore K.C. Kennedy replaced him for the rest of the game.
The second half was almost identical to the first as Marquette opened the scoring but again went cold. Bellarmine went on a run and led 8-4 heading into the fourth, where the game heated up.
Scoring was scarce and halfway through the quarter Marquette needed a rally. A disallowed goal for Marquette was followed by a good goal from redshirt senior attackman Tyler Melnyk. A goal a minute later from sophomore attackman Henry Nelson brought the team within two. When a two-man advantage presented itself soon after, a comeback looked inevitable.
However, nothing came of the men-up chance and the remaining offensive chances resulted in saves and turnovers. Bellarmine ran out the clock and ran away with the 10-7 victory.
“We didn’t come ready to play,” freshman goalie Jimmy Danaher said. “We came out a little bit slow in the beginning of the game, and we just couldn’t comeback and bring it all together.”
Despite going cold for long periods of time, the Golden Eagles certainly had their chances. Most of these chances came close to the net but were either stopped by Bellarmine goalie Will Haas, who made 13 saves, or went wide. At the other end, Danaher played exceptionally making a career-high 14 saves.
In a penalty-ridden game, the defense stood tall. The man-down unit went 5-for-6 in penalty kills. Unfortunately, the man-up unit went 1-for-6 and the offense’s inability to finish cost Marquette the game.
“We didn’t finish today,” said Melnyk, who tallied a hat trick. “We had a lot of opportunities on the doorstep that we didn’t finish, hit the goalie or went wide or whatever, so we need to bear down and finish the ball. It was one I though we should have had. We didn’t play our game at points and that really cost us.”
The team will head back to practice quickly as Big East play continues Sunday when it travels to face St. John’s.
