Men’s lacrosse grinds out second win of the season against Canisius

It took the Boston University men’s lacrosse team seven games to get its first win in its inaugural season in 2014, and another six to get its second.

In just two games in 2015, BU (2-0) has already equaled its win total from the program’s first season and is showing that, though the results weren’t there, the experience the team gained in 2014 was invaluable.

The Terriers hosted Canisius College on Saturday and won 13-9 after the game had to be moved back to Boston from Buffalo, New York, due to snow. It wasn’t the same blow out that the scarlet and white subjected Mercer University to on Feb. 7, but it was the kind of win that BU had trouble securing last season.

A minute into play, the Golden Griffins (0-1) got on the board first when attack Billy Jacobbi got in close and beat sophomore goalkeeper Christian Carson-Banister. BU scored the next two goals, though, as attacks freshman Jack Wilson and sophomore Adam Schaal each added tallies 13 seconds apart. With the Terriers up 2-1, sophomore attack Sam Tenney netted his own marker to extend the BU lead with 6:36 remaining in the opening frame.

By quarter’s end, however, Canisius tied it and subsequently took a 4-3 lead on a man-up goal with 23 seconds to go.

Sophomore midfielder Cal Dearth evened the score about halfway through the second, but the Golden Griffins responded three minutes later with two quick goals to give their team a 6-4 advantage going into the half.

The third quarter was when the Terriers really started to pull away. Coming out of the break, BU controlled possession in the quarter’s opening minutes, working its way around the net before Dearth finally broke through to score. Tenney notched his second a minute later to re-knot the game. With 7:20 to play in the stanza, Schaal found the back of the net again after running around the crease and shooting across the net mouth to hit the corner, giving the Terriers their second lead of the game.

“[Canisius] was an experienced team. This was a very gritty team,” said BU coach Ryan Polley. “We weren’t playing great. We just kind of recouped and kind of got ourselves our composure at halftime and then had a great third quarter.”

To cap off the quarter, with 2:32 left, freshman attack Ryan Hilburn scored BU’s eighth goal of the day, and after winning the ensuing faceoff, sophomore faceoff specialist Sam Talkow charged down the field and slung the ball into the net himself. The Terriers outscored the Golden Griffins 5-0 in the frame and outshot them 18-4.

“That might have been the best quarter we’ve played since I’ve been here,” Polley said. “We were just efficient in all facets of the game.”

Canisius scored twice in the first five minutes of the closing stanza to pull within one, but sophomore long-stick midfielder Greg Wozniak recorded the first goal of his collegiate career just 30 seconds later to pad the lead. Six seconds after that, Talkow struck again for his second fresh-off-the-faceoff goal of the contest.

The next five minutes saw a lot of Canisius possession in the Terriers’ end, but Carson-Banister and the BU defense kept the Griffs at bay and the ball out of the goal.

Once it got the ball back, BU made it count, as sophomore midfielder Craig Zebrowski got his second goal of the season. Canisius added one more, but with 44 seconds to go, and the ball bouncing around outside of an unoccupied Canisius net, Wilson batted it in down low with his stick. He was one of five Terriers with a two-goal game at the end of 60 minutes and tied Hilburn for a team-high four points.

“It was a great win, a good team win,” Wozniak said. “I mean, we’re really young so to come back and win when we’re down a few goals really means a lot. It shows that we’re maturing and taking a step in the right direction.”

BU cut its turnovers down significantly from their last meeting against the Griffins on Feb. 15, 2014, from 21 to 10, only four of which were caused by Canisius. And after winning just 3-of-14 faceoffs in 2014 and going 6-of-12 in the first half this time, Talkow edged Griffins specialist Tim Edwards eight to 14 in the second for success on 14-of-26 by the tilt’s end.

“It’s just being used to playing in these situations,” Polley said of his team’s improved play in the latter half. “Last year, we had runs where the other team would go on runs, and sometimes, we didn’t deal with it as well as we had hoped. The guys just got a ton of experience.

“I’m just so proud. I told Greg [Wozniak]. I told the whole team. Greg didn’t have a great first half, and he came back and had a tremendous second half. Sam [Talkow] wasn’t facing off great in the beginning, and he just grinded. We just look at ourselves as a blue-collar team, a team that grinds, and today we grinded out that victory. I’m very pleased.”