The No. 14 Boston University men’s lacrosse team (9-3, 6-0 Patriot League) snapped a two-game losing streak with a 14-9 win against Loyola University Maryland (5-6, 4-2 PL) in Baltimore, Maryland on Saturday afternoon.
“I wanted to learn from the [previous] two games. They are two opponents that we knew were some of the best teams in the country,” head coach Ryan Polley said postgame in reference to the team’s tough losses against Yale University and Princeton University.
After a slow start to the day, the Terriers kept the Greyhounds at bay by denying 11 of Loyola’s 12 first-quarter shots. By the end of the frame, the score was tied 1-1.
Loyola graduate student goalkeeper Sam Shafer stifled BU from controlling the lead for much of the first half, totaling 11 saves for the game and saving his team from a significant deficit in the first half.
The momentum began to swing BU’s way when junior midfielder Conor Calderone won a faceoff and went down the field to score in under five seconds to tie the game in the middle of the second quarter, electrifying the Terrier bench. After the two teams traded goals for the following minutes of play, the second quarter ended with the score knotted at five goals apiece.
The Terriers came out on fire in the second half, posting a 5-1 run in the third quarter to extend from the Greyhounds.
“We were kind of feeling them out a little bit … and then the explosion in that third quarter to kind of separate the game,” Polley said.
The Terriers took the lead with Calderone dominating the faceoffs and giving the Terriers’ potent offense a chance to turn the game around.
Junior attack Louis Perfetto stuffed the stat sheet with six assists, four ground balls and two goals for the Terriers.
“We rode really hard on the ground, causing a lot of turnovers and getting a lot of ground balls back,” Perfetto said in a post-game press conference.
Senior attack Timmy Ley scored to be the third Terrier in BU men’s lacrosse history to score 100 goals, and the team pulled away from the Greyhounds to win by a score of 14-9.
The Terriers will look to keep their first place positioning in the conference to hold home-field advantage throughout the Patriot League Tournament, which starts on May 6.
After taking a week off, the Terriers will travel to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania for a conference matchup against Lehigh University (7-4, 5-1 PL), third place in the conference, on Saturday, April 23.
