The 18th-ranked Fighting Blue Hens of Delaware scored four goals in the last 2:42 to erase a 10-8 deficit and post a 12-10 Colonial Athletic Association victory over the Hofstra Pride Saturday night at Rullo Stadium. Delaware, with its third straight victory, improves to 8-2 overall and 1-0 in CAA play while Hofstra, which dropped its fifth consecutive game, falls to 2-6 and 0-1.
Delaware senior Ryan Metzbower and junior Joe Trentzsch each recorded "hat tricks" to lead the Blue Hens. Hofstra was led by sophomore attackman Chris Unterstein (pictured), who posted two goals and three assists, while sophomore Ryan Miller added two goals and one assist.
Trailing 7-6 entering the fourth quarter, the Pride scored the first two goals as part of a 4-1 run that gave Hofstra a 10-8 lead with 3:43 to play in regulation. Unterstein opened the scoring 1:31 into the fourth with his second goal of the game and sixth of the season with a short-side wrap-around stuff on the left side of Delaware goalie Chris Collins. Miller gave Hofstra its first lead of the game at 8-7 as Unterstein made the same move from the previous goal but passed back to Miller behind the cage. Miller went around the right side of Collins and beat him with a bullet for his fifth of the season with 12:09 to play.
Delaware freshman Cam Howard scored his 14th of the season with 7:49 to play on hard work. After Pride goalie Matt Southard (16 saves) made a point-blank save, Howard blocked his clearing pass in front of the cage, picked up the ground ball and beat Southard. But Hofstra responded 1:24 later with senior middie Don Scott taking a pass from Miller 15 yards out on the right side of Collins, and firing in his second goal of the year. Miller would boost the lead to 10-8 with 3:43 to play on a similar play as his first goal, coming around the right side of the goalie after a pass from Unterstein.
The Blue Hens, who had never won a CAA men's lacrosse game before Saturday night, did not quit. After a failed Hofstra clear in its defensive zone, Delaware charged Southard on a short 3-on-1 breakaway. Metzbower scooped up the ground ball and beat Southard with a rocket to close the gap to 10-9 with 2:42 to play. It was Metzbower's second of the game and 10th of the season. Just 29 seconds later, UD senior captain Matt Aldrich took a pass from Ryan Overs, stepped away from his defender toward the middle of the box and beat Southard from 13 yards out. It was his second of the game and 23rd of the year, and tied the game at 10-10.
With the game looking like it was headed to overtime, but with UD putting the pressure on in the Hofstra zone, Metzbower took a pass on the left side of Southard at the top of the box, beat his defender, and fired a shot past the Pride goalie for the 11-10 lead. Any thoughts of a tying Hofstra goal were squashed when Pride middie Ryan Vilar was whistled off for a 30 second pushing penalty with 26 seconds to play. Trentzsch took a pass from Howard, while Hofstra was on a full-field ride, and buried his third goal of the game and eighth of the season into the empty Pride cage with 19 seconds to play to seal the 12-10 victory.
The loss overshadowed a Hofstra comeback from a 4-1 first quarter deficit to tie the game at 5-5 early in the third quarter. Two goals by sophomore middie John Keysor and one by Matt Schwartzberg closed the gap to 5-4 by halftime. Unterstein tied the game at 5-5 on a mad scramble for a loose ball in front of the cage with the goalie out of place 4:50 into the third period. Aldrich gave the Blue Hens a 6-5 lead three minutes later off a pass from Luke Wiles. Vilar tied the game at 6-6 on a running shot with 5:38 to play in the third. But Metzbower scored the first of his three goals 1:09 later to give Delaware the lead and set up the fourth quarter dramatics.
The Blue Hens outshot the Pride, 54-22, including 16-6 in the final period. The Pride's five-game losing streak is the longest since 1985 when the Flying Dutchmen posted two five-game losing skids in their 3-11 season. The last time Hofstra dropped six consecutive games was in 1981.
The Pride will be in action next on Wednesday, April 7 when they host the Pioneers of Sacred Heart University in a CAA match-up at Shuart Stadium at 7:30 p.m .
