Hempstead, NY –The Hofstra Men's Lacrosse team will return to Amherst, Massachusetts for the second time in a week this Thursday, May 3 when the fourth-seed Pride (6-7, 2-3) take on the top-seed Minutemen of the University of Massachusetts (10-4, 5-0) in the first Colonial Athletic Association Championship semifinal at Richard Garber Field. Game time is 5 p.m.
In the other semifinal at 7:30 p.m., second-seed and defending champions, the Tigers of Towson (6-7, 3-2) will face third-seed the Blue Hens of Delaware (6-7, 3-2) in the second CAA Championship semifinal at Garber Field at 7:30 p.m. The CAA Championship title game will be played on Saturday, May 5 at 1 p.m.
The Lax Sports Network will stream video of all three games in the CAA Championship while the CAA and UMass will provide live stats of all three games. Pride Productions will stream the audio of the Hofstra-UMass contest with WRHU-FM (88.7) student-broadcasters Nick Faria and Justin Huntsman describing the action. Tickets are available by calling the UMass Ticket Office at 866-UMASS-TIX or can be purchased
online.
The 2018 CAA Tournament is Hofstra's 14th conference tournament and the 12th in the CAA. All other conference championships were decided by round-robin play. Hofstra has won league titles in: 1988 and 1989 in the East Coast Conference; five championships in the North Atlantic Conference-America East in 1995, 1996, 1997, 1998 and 2000; and two in the CAA in 2006 and 2008.
The Pride is coming off a 14-6 loss to the Minutemen in Amherst in the regular season finale for both teams last Friday. Hofstra was leading the game, 3-2 with 3:48 to play in the first quarter before UMass went on a 10-goal goal to open up a 12-3 lead just 1:11 into the third quarter. The Pride tallied three unanswered goals in the final five minutes of the third to close to 12-6 but couldn't sustain the rally and fell, 14-6. Junior
Jimmy Yanes led Hofstra with two goals while seniors
Dylan Alderman and
Alex Moeser, sophomore
Ryan Tierney and freshman
Dylan McIntosh each had a goal and an assist. Senior
Jack Concannon made 10 saves.
On the season, Hofstra ranks third in the nation in defense, allowing only 7.69 goals per game while scoring 8.77 goals per outing. Hofstra has six players in double-figures in points through 13 games as Tierney leads the team with 49 points on 27 goals and 22 assists. Yanes has 32 points on 22 goals and 11 assists while McIntosh has 20 goals and three assists. Alderman, who missed four games this season with an injury, has 11 goals and 12 assists in nine games.
Sophomore
Kyle Gallagher is now 130-for-227 in face-offs for a .573 winning percentage, while also picking up a team-best 85 ground balls and scoring three goals. He ranks 14th in ground balls per game and 21st in face-off winning percentage in Division I. Concannon, who was selected by the Florida Launch in the fourth round of Major League Lacrosse Collegiate Draft on April 18th, ranks fourth in the nation in goals against average with a 7.64 slate and is 11th in save percentage with a .548 mark with 120 saves.
UMass, which is riding a nine-game winning streak and has outscored their opponents, 114-66 during that time, has wins over Sacred Heart (13-9), NJIT (17-3), UMass Lowell (13-6), Hartford (17-13), Brown (14-12), Drexel (11-10), Delaware (9-8), Towson (8-4), Fairfield (11-4) and Hofstra (14-6). Their losses have come against Army (18-6), Harvard (16-11), Yale (13-10) and Albany (19-8). The Minutemen average 11.57 goals per game while allowing 10.07 per outing.
UMass is led in scoring by Buddy Carr with 32 goals and 21 assists while Jeff Trainor has 24 goals and 17 assists and Chris Connolly has chipped in with 21 goals and 19 assists. In the Minutemen cage, Sean Scanone has a 9.69 goals against average with 101 saves and a .601 save percentage.
Thursday's game is the 45th meeting between Hofstra and UMass with the Minutemen holding a 24-20 series lead. The two teams have split their last six meetings. UMass ended Hofstra's season last year on a last second goal from near midfield.
