Men's lacrosse conference play gets underway in America East this weekend with three contests. The top four teams in the conference standings following the month-long regular season will qualify for the conference tournament, which has been won by three different teams in as many seasons.
All three contests take place Saturday with Albany hosting Binghamton and Stony Brook entertaining Vermont. Both of those games start at 1 p.m. while UMBC hosts Hartford at 7 p.m.
Highlighting the weekend's slate is a rematch of last year's America East semifinals between UMBC and Hartford, which the Hawks won 14-11 en route to capturing their first-ever conference title. Hartford, which has won four straight over UMBC, features three of the league's top 10 scorers. Senior Aidan Genik, a Lowe's Senior CLASS Award candidate, ranks second in the league with 20 goals while classmate Carter Bender is tied for third (19 goals) and freshman Kevin O'Shea, the league's top scoring rookie, is fifth with 16 scores. The Retrievers' Scott Jones ranks third averaging 2.33 goals per game (16 total).
The two teams showed flashes of brilliance during the non-conference portion of the slate. The Retrievers (2-4), who lead the league allowing just 9.81 goals per game, beat then No. 4 Maryland, 8-7, and also beat Rutgers, while the Hawks (3-6) are coming off a 24-goal effort against Wagner and rank third nationally averaging 13.3 goals per game.
Earlier in the day, reigning regular-season champion Stony Brook puts its regular-season win streak against America East foes on the line when Vermont visits LaValle Stadium. The Seawolves have won 14 straight conference games with their last loss coming March 28, 2009 to UMBC. First-year head coach Jim Nagle led Stony Brook (1-7) to a 7-6 win over then No. 18 Delaware on March 10. The Seawolves have had some tough luck with Six of their seven losses coming by three goals or less, including four by just one score. Redshirt freshman Mike Rooney, a two-time America East Rookie of the Week, paces SBU with 14 goals.
Vermont (1-7) beat Sacred Heart, 12-11, on March 17 for its lone win. The Catamounts, which opened up the brand new Virtue Field earlier this year, are looking to get back to the America East Championship for the second time in three years after missing out last season. Senior Geoff Worley leads Vermont with 23 points (10 goals, 13 assists) and ranks second among league leaders in helpers.
The Albany-Binghamton matchup features the league's top scorer. The Bearcats' Michael Antinozzi paces the conference with 25 goals, which ranks fourth nationally. Binghamton (2-5) have wins over Lafayette and Siena this season and is looking to return to the league tournament again in 2012. The Great Danes (0-7) hope to get back their too after missingo out last year for the time since joining the league in 2002. Joe Resetarits leads Albany and ranks second in America East with 25 points (19 goals, 6 assists).
The 2012 America East Championship, which will be high seed format throughout, will take place the first week of May. The semifinals will be played on Wednesday, May 2 with the title game taking place on Saturday, May 5 at 3 p.m. That game will air live on ESPN3. The league champion will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament, where three different teams (Albany, UMBC, Stony Brook) have advanced to the quarterfinals since 2007.