by ALBANY, N.Y. – With Blaze Riorden saving a career-high 21 shots and Lyle Thompson (Onondaga Nation) finishing with seven points, the UAlbany men’s lacrosse team held off UMass 10-9 to win its home opener on Saturday.
With its opponent leading 4-3 midway through the 2nd quarter, UAlbany (2-1) rolled off six-straight goals to earn a five-goal lead. UMass (0-5) outscored UAlbany 4-1 in the fourth quarter, but the Great Danes held for the victory.
“I thought our defense, along with a super day by Blaze [Riorden] in the net, won the game for us,” said UAlbany coach Scott Marr. “They did a phenomenal job with as many times we had to play defense with a tough day at the faceoff and tunrovers, but they held them to less than ten goals, an outstanding job.”
Riorden surpassed his original career-high of 20, which he had twice before over the last two seasons. On the offensive side, Thompson earned a season-high seven points off a goal and six assists. He now has 292 career points, just one away from tying the program record of 293 by his brother Miles Thompson. Seth Oakes and Connor Fields each earned hat tricks, while John Maloney scored a pair of goals.
For UMass, Brendan Hegarty scored three goals and scooped three ground balls. Dan Muller had two goals and an assist. Zach Oliveri got the loss with 15 saves on 25 shots on goal.
In the first quarter, UAlbany struck first with a couple of catch and shoot plays from Thompson. First found Oakes, second got to Fields for a 2-0 UAlbany lead. UMass got looks next to the cage and rolled off three-straight goals, sandwiched by two from Hegarty. Thompson connected again with Oakes for the catch and shoot goal to put the first quarter score at 3-3.
Andrew Sokol scored for UMass for the only goal by either side in the opening 7:30 of the second. Thompson again found his marks on passes, getting two straight to Fields for goals and a UAlbany lead. Then Tim Cox set up Thompson for his goal of the game. Later on a man-up situation, a missed Oakes shot was picked up and scored by Maloney to put UAlbany up 7-4, the eventual halftime score.
As Riorden continued to make saves to hold off UMass, Oakes added another goal from Thompson. Later,Matt Garziano got a second chance on his own miss and scored with 10:02 left in the period to complete the 6-0 run as UAlbany led 9-4. After UMass scored a minute after winning the next faceoff, the teams went back and forth without any more scoring in the quarter. Riorden added four more saves to total 18 in the first three periods as UAlbany led 9-5 going into the last quarter.
The team exchanged scores in the first five minutes as Peter Lindley scored a couple minutes in, countered by a rebound goal by Maloney for a 10-6 UAlbany lead. UAlbany held off UMass for the next five-and-a-half minutes. UMass dominated possession and scored twice, the second coming with eight seconds left. UMass won the last faceoff but UAlbany held on in the final seconds to earn the 10-9 victory.
UAlbany begins conference play next week, taking on Stony Brook on Long Island on Saturday, March 14th at 1 p.m.
