The Retriever men’s
lacrosse team saw its dream season come to an end in the NCAA
Quarterfinals as UMBC dropped a 10-6 decision to Delaware at Navy-Marine Corps Stadium in Annapolis, Md.
UMBC’s season ends with a record of 11-6 as the Retrievers played the most games (17) in their Division I history. Delaware has won seven in a row and heads to the semi-finals with a 13-5 record.
UMBC fell behind for
the fourth consecutive game when Jordan Hall scored for the Blue Hens
just 1:45 into the contest. But UMBC knotted the game on a Cayle
Ratcliff score at the 11:25 mark and built a 3-1 lead on second quarter
extra-man goals by Andy Gallagher and Drew Westervelt. But the Blue
Hens would send the game to intermission tied at 3-3 with scores by Dan
Deckelbaum (8:36) and Hall, who tied it with 23 seconds remaining in
the half.
The Retrievers, who
were a +22 in the third quarter entering the game again gave up the
first goal of the stanza as Adam Zuder-Havens finished the UD
three-goal run with an unassisted tally with 11:55 remaining in the
half. Retriever sophomore midfielder Alex Hopmann provided UMBC with
its final tie with his sixth NCAA Tournament goal at the 8:13 mark, but
Delaware’s Dan Deckelbaum scored back-to-back goals to end the third
quarter and build a 6-4 lead after 15 minutes.
Delaware built a 7-4
lead on a Jordan Hall score at the 12:22 mark of the fourth quarter,
but Westervelt scored to draw UMBC within two goals just 29 seconds
later. But the Blue Hens responded just six seconds later as the
nation’s premier face-off specialist Alex Smith won the draw and fed
Curtis Dickson for a four-on-three goal on a break and the Blue Hens
tacked on two more scores before UMBC middie Terry Kimener capped
UMBC’s scoring in the final two minutes of play.
UMBC’s six goals tied
a season-low scored vs. Johns Hopkins in early March. The nation’s
seventh-best offensive team had averaged 13.5 goals per game in its 7-1
April/May surge.
Westervelt led UMBC
with two goals and two assists and became the fourth Retriever in
school history to amass 70 (35g-36a-71pts) points in a single season.
Andy Gallagher was the other multiple-point scorer with a goal and as
assist as UMBC managed just 16 shots through three quarters.
Sophomore netminder Jeremy Blevins made ten saves for UMBC.
Deckelbaum and Hall each had three goals and an assist for Delaware.