Cortland, NY- Second-ranked Cortland State relied upon its high-powered offense to defeat the Clarkson University Men’s Lacrosse team, 14-3, in the second round of the Division III NCAA Tournament on Sunday afternoon.
The Red Dragons (15-2) will now advance to play Nazareth College in the quarterfinals of the national tournament. The Golden Knights, who won the Upstate Collegiate Athletic Association (UCAA) Tournament, concluded their season with an 8-8 record.
"We had a couple rough days leading up to the game, but I thought our guys did a very nice job of focusing on what we needed to do,” stated head coach Bill Bergan. “Some of our younger guys were nervous and we did not do what we needed to do on offense to be successful against a very good Cortland team. We did get a lot of quality shots, but when we did not generate goals off of them we started to struggle a bit. Defensively I thought we played very well, we just got worn down. They are very good offensively and they just wore us down. I am awfully pleased with our guys. I am proud of them. They put their hearts on the line for a month. Every time their backs were against the wall, they rose to the occasion. This one unfortunately did not go in our favor.”
Cortland held a 1-0 first quarter lead and led 5-2 at the half in a very tight defensive opening 30 minutes of play. The Red Dragons broke the game open in the second half outscoring Clarkson 9-1, including a 6-0 run in the fourth quarter.
Cortland took a 2-0 lead 43 seconds into the second quarter before senior Jim Lavelle (Hamburg, NY) scored his 30th goal of the season just under a minute later. The Red Dragons went on top 3-1 at 10:08, but the Knights again made it a one-goal game with senior Dan Amedro’s (Camillus, NY) sixth goal of the season, a man-up marker with 1:34 left in the half. The Red Dragons, however, answered back with two quick goals to gain a 5-2 advantage going into intermission.
Cortland opened the third quarter with a three-goal spurt before senior Ryan Bodkin (East Amherst, NY) tallied the Green and Gold’s final goal of the contest with 4:01 remaining in the third quarter to make it an 8-3 game.
Senior Brian Pratt (Randolph, NJ) got the starting nod in goal for the Knights, filling in for first-team UCAA All-Star Joe Zebrowski (Liverpool, NY) who missed the game for personal reasons, and made 16 saves as the Red Dragons out shot Clarkson 49-24
