The Quinnipiac men’s lacrosse team dropped their home opener to the Bryant Bulldogs on Saturday afternoon.
Early in the first quarter, the pace was very fast with two shots by each team in the first minute but Trevor Douglas would strike first, going top shelf to make it 1-0 Quinnipiac.
Bryant would tie it up quickly off a shot from Max Douglas and then after Quinnipiac gave up a penalty, Dawson Rielly would find an open seam to give the Bulldogs a 2-1 lead.
Rielly would get an early hat trick after he made it 3-1, and then 4-1, earning a natural hat trick. Frank Mousa would score off a quick draw to bring back one for the Bobcats, making the score 4-2.
Bryant would extend their lead out to 6-2 but a late goal by Nate Watson would cut the deficit to three heading into the second quarter.
In the second quarter, the Bulldogs would start out hot with a goal from Tiernan Lathrop just 40 seconds in. Justin Robbert would strike back quickly to make it 7-4, forcing a timeout by Bryant, their first of the game.
After the timeout, it would be all Bulldogs. An offensive breakout from Bryant would lead to five consecutive goals plus a non-releasable, two-minute penalty from Quinnipiac. This would extend the Bryant lead to 12-4 with three minutes to play before half.
Quinnipiac would have one more chance right before half but they would be unsuccessful and would be down eight goals heading into the second half.
The Bobcats would try and get a spark to stay in this game to start the second half but Bryant was persistent on scoring. A couple of goals from the start of the second half would make it 14-4.
Quinnipiac would continue to get some chances but the Bryant goaltender Scott Einarson would continue to make saves. He had stopped 5 of the 9 shots on goal from Quinnipiac as it stood with ten minutes to play in the third quarter.
With the big lead, things would start to get chippy. Both teams would exchange a couple of penalties within minutes including two penalties on the same play from Bryant’s Luke Mead.
After giving up two quick goals Bryant would try and chew some clock as they would end up committing two shot clock violations. Quinnipiac’s defense persisted but after the second violation, Quinnipiac would get their first goal since 11:49 in the second quarter.
Owen Murray would pocket one past Einarson to cut the lead to 14-5. Not only would they score that one, but Justin Robbert would get his second of the game and the lead would then be cut to eight. Just minutes later, the momentum would be all in favor of Quinnipiac.
Jake Galosse would score as he was falling to the ground and just like that, the Bobcats were suddenly back in this game.
In the winding seconds of the third quarter, Bryant would get a late goal from Brian Russell to make it 15-7 Bryant going into the final 15 minutes.
Through the first five minutes of the quarter, both teams would exchange goals to make it 16-8 Bryant lead. Both teams would continue to go back and forth as the score would be 18-10 with 6:30 to play.
The Bobcats would try and get a late spark but it would not be enough in the end. Quinnipiac would lose 18-10 and drop to 0-3 on the season.
“Today’s obviously not the result we were looking for in a week where we got punched in the mouth… They didn’t quit. They didn’t give up. That’s something that we can build on, at least we have to make it a little bit easier for ourselves to be a little bit smarter so we don’t have to work as hard” It’s something that we can buy into going forward,” said Quinnipiac Head Coach Mason Poli regarding the resilience of his team in the second half.
Quinnipiac will travel to Colorado to face off against the Air Force Academy on Feb. 28th at 2:00 p.m.
