Brockport shuts down Alfred defensively in victory
- Brayden Peters
- 5 days ago
- 4 min read
By: Brayden Peters / Assistant Sports Director
BROCKPORT, N.Y. - The Brockport Golden Eagles men's lacrosse team outmuscled the Alfred Saxons 11-4 to Brockport's first multi-game winning streak of the season. The Golden Eagles not only played physical, but generated 13 caused turnovers and kept Alfred's high scoring offense at bay. Going in, the Saxons were ranked first in the Empire 8 in goals per game with 13.00. With today's result, four goals is the second lowest amount of goals Alfred has scored in a game this season.
"There has been a lot of growth and a lot of that comes with experience, our failures, obstacles that we face, the challenges," Brockport head coach Nick Fiorentino said. "Through those, give those guys credit, they kept tough skin and kept true to our core value of accepting adversity and that's what it's been up to this point. We haven't had an enormous amount of success to where we say, "hey, this is who we are."...we're a better team now than we were week ago and a week ago, we were better than two weeks ago...it's been a great journey, I'm proud of the guys and our ultimate goal is continue to be lifelong learners and grow and develop."
Brockport senior midfielder Nick Maslin led the team with four caused turnovers while also tacking on two points (one + one) onto his name. Senior long stick midfielder Zach Cole and senior defenseman Tim Hubbard both recorded three caused turnovers as well.
"There's nothing that we can't do as a team," Maslin said. "Our defense has been solid the past couple games. We were able to go against Geneseo pretty good and this is a team (Alfred) that was able to put up seven on (St. John) Fisher...it's not a one person thing, it's a defense, it's a whole unit. Being able to turn guys back into slides and just create turnovers is huge for us."
Senior midfielder Jack Rice (two + two) and graduate attacker Carson Colucci (four + zero) tied for a game-high four points.
"That's the product of our guys like Nate (Askin), and (Marc) Zappulla and Jack Rice dodging hard and drawing slides and moving it (the ball) with an extra pass," Fiorentino said. "Carson (Colucci) being there in the right spots to catch that second, third pass against the defense's rotation or recoveries and he had some great looks. It was definitetly a unit, not just one guy, but Carson's got to do his job and finish and he did that at a really high level today."
Senior Jack Acker got the start in between the pipes for Brockport. He recorded 10 saves for a 71.4 save percentage. He also set the program record for career saves with 303, passing Matt Staalsen's 298 saves that he set in the 2007 season. Sophomore Jared Kulik stepped in with 1:07 left in the fourth quarter. He recorded one save and allowed no goals.
Alfred junior attacker Cole Loewke kicked the scoring off with 12:47 left in the first quarter. He rifled a sidearm right-handed shot from the hole and beat Acker stick side.
Colucci would tie the game up over a minute later for the Golden Eagles. He fired a low-to-low right-handed shot into the bottom right corner of the cage. Rice was credited with the assist. Colucci's goal would be the start of a streak of four unanswered goals that carried into the second frame, with the next two coming in the first. At the end of the quarter, Brockport outshot the Saxons nine-to-three.
The streak would end as freshman attacker Jacob Michaels would score on transition with 10:31 left in the second frame. After some tick-tack-toe passing from Alfred, Michaels found the top right corner of the net on a right-handed shot from up top.
However, the Golden Eagles would strike back before the end of the half thanks to Colucci. From the hole, he buried a right-handed shot top right corner of the net with 5:04 left in the half. Senior midfielder Nate Askin was given an assist on the goal. At the end of the second quarter, Brockport outshot the Saxons 15-to-11 in the frame.
The Golden Eagles would score three consecutive goals in the third frame to go up 8-2. They also held Alfred scoreless for the quarter. Brockport would outshoot the Saxons 10-to-seven in the frame.
Maslin would increase the unanswered goal streak to five to start the fourth quarter 20 seconds in. He would bury a sidearm right-handed shot through the five-hole of senior goalie Quinn Sullivan. He made eight saves for a 42.1 save percentage in the loss.
Alfred would respond on its first man-up of the game with 13:00 left. Sloweke ripped a left-handed shot into the top left corner of the net to cut the lead to 9-3.
Brockport once again would respond with multiple goals, scoring two unanswered to take a 11-3 lead with 8:59 left in the game. The Saxons would sneak away with one more goal on another man-up, as freshman midfielder Sam Crosby beat Acker on a sidearm left-handed bounce shot stick side. At the end of the quarter, Alfred beat the Golden Eagles in shots in the frame eight-to-three.
The Golden Eagles improved to 5-6 this season and 2-2 in Empire 8 play. They moved up two spots to fourth place in the conference standings. The Saxons dropped to 4-5 and are 2-2 in conference play. They fell from fourth to sixth in the standings.
Brockport will host Utica next for Senior Day on Saturday. Face-off is scheduled for 1 p.m.
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