Brockport clinches playoff berth despite loss to Nazareth
- Brayden Peters
- 4 minutes ago
- 4 min read
By: Brayden Peters / Assistant Sports Director
BROCKPORT, N.Y. - The Brockport Golden Eagles men's lacrosse team clinched a playoff berth and will be the fifth seed in the Empire 8 playoffs. However, they couldn't finish their final home stand of the regular season on a high note, as they fell 13-7 to the Nazareth Golden Flyers. Nazareth outscored the Golden Eagles 6-2 in the second quarter and held Brockport scoreless in the fourth quarter.
"Everything was there across the map except for the execution, and it's in all phases from the defense, offense, riding, clearing, man-down," Brockport head coach Nick Fiorentino said. "It's very exciting we took a step forward, but in that same breath we want to win, and to do that we need to execute and that was the tale of the tape here was execution. They executed better than we did."
To start the second quarter, the Golden Flyers were up 4-2. Almost 30 seconds in, Nazareth junior attacker Kyle Rosenberger buried a behind-the-back shot into the bottom right corner of the net.
The Golden Eagles would respond with 11:53 left thanks to graduate attacker Carson Colucci. He buried a right-handed shot from the hole into the bottom left corner of the net to cut the lead to 4-3. Senior midfielder Nate Askin was credited with an assist.
Nazareth proceeded to go on a four unanswered goal run after Colucci's goal, which was then snapped by sophomore attacker Hunter Rhielman. With 5:37 remaining in the quarter, Rhielman received a feed from freshman midfielder Nicholas Ange, who quickly won a face-off. Rhielman went on to rip a sidearm right-handed shot into the top left corner of the cage.
The Golden Flyers would sneak away with one more goal before the end of the frame with just under five minutes left. Junior midfielder Joey Hathorn drove towards the cage and buried a left-handed shot into the top right corner of the net.
Nazareth outshot Brockport 13-to-three in the quarter.
Colucci (two + zero), Rhielman (one + one) and freshman attacker Pierson Jacobs (one + one) tied each other a team-high two points for Brockport. Ange went five-of-20 on face-offs, as Nazareth senior midfielder Jakub Denkenberger went 14-of-18 in the face-off circle. Golden Eagles sophomore midfielder Tyler Pastore led the team with two caused turnovers while also scoring his first career goal.
"Every player on our defense is crucial to the way we play and we're all working off each other and building to be a good defense together," Pastore said. "It comes with practice every day and lift and all that stuff that we do when people aren't watching."
Brockport senior goalie Jack Acker got the start in between the pipes. He finished with 24 saves for a 64.9 save percentage.
Turnovers hurt the Golden Eagles in the contest, as they had 15 compared to Nazareth's nine.
The Golden Eagles were the first to get on the board in the first quarter 36 seconds in. Senior midfielder Jack Rice slashed his way to the crease and found the top right corner on a left-handed shot.
Nazareth would respond with three unanswered goals to take a 3-1 lead with 9:53 remaining in the frame.
Brockport would come back to cut the deficit to one. Jacobs was all alone in front of the net and beat junior goalie McLean Ralston on a low-to-low left-handed shot after a couple of fakes. Rhielman was given an assist on the goal. Ralston finished with 14 saves for a 66.7 save percentage.
Rosenberger would give the Golden Flyers one more goal before the end of the quarter with 1:07 remaining. He was able to match Jacobs' low-to-low, left-handed shot with one of his own.
Brockport outshot Nazareth 11-to-six in the frame.
After the Golden Flyers outscored the Golden Eagles 6-2 in the second quarter, Fiorentino sent a message to Brockport at halftime.
"First thing he said was 'the scoreboard is 0-0," Colucci said. "'We got to go out and win this half' and we came out with that mindset."
Brockport came out guns blazing to start the third frame. 31 seconds in, Pastore ripped a sidearm right-handed shot past Ralston into the bottom left corner of the cage.
"Courtesy of my teammates of forcing a turnover," Pastore said. "I was able to get the ball and have an open shot there and score."
Pastore's goal was the start of a streak of three consecutive goals to cut the lead to 10-7. The Golden Eagles also held Nazareth scoreless in the frame, as Acker made seven saves in the quarter.
"Heading into this game, we knew there was the potential that we would be running some zone defense," Fiorentino said. "We really wanted to see how we would handle them head-to-head, man-to-man. As we went into halftime and discussed it over with Coach (Zachary) Barber, it was pretty evident we needed to combat their speed and athleticism. At times you can do that with a zone defense and that happened today, we did a good job with that. So, compliments to the defense there for the majority of time executing the game plan."
The Golden Flyers barely outshot Brockport seven-to-six in the frame.
Nazareth would score three straight goals in the fourth quarter and hold the Golden Eagles scoreless to walk away with the win. The Golden Flyers outshot Brockport 10-to-one in the frame.
The Golden Eagles dropped to 7-8 this season and are now 4-4 in conference play. As for Nazareth, they improved to 11-5 and are 7-1 in conference action. They have the second seed in the Empire 8 clinched.
Brockport will finish its regular season on the road against the Keuka Wolves on Saturday. Face-off is scheduled for 1 p.m.
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