By Dylan Smith, Staff Writer
Susquehanna’s men’s lacrosse dropped their first two games of the season against the Warriors of Lycoming College 12-9 on Saturday, Feb. 17 in Williamsport and the Mules of Muhlenburg College 8-6 on Wednesday, Feb. 21 in Selinsgrove.
Lycoming attacker Drew Collins scored two goals in the first five minutes of the game to give the Warriors a 2-0 lead.
River Hawks attacker Jake Smolokoff cut the lead in half with 3:56 left in the first, but Lycoming’s Andrew Ream scored right before the end of the quarter to give the Warriors a 3-1 lead.
Susquehanna would eventually tie the game at four after senior attacker Andrew Porzio scored once and midfielder Alec Tzaneteas scored twice. However, that tie was short-lived when Lycoming’s Travis Rode scored ten seconds after Tzaneteas’ second goal of the second quarter.
After halftime, Tzaneteas scored three goals in the span of 36 seconds to give Susquehanna a 7-5 lead. The Warriors’ Collins would cut the lead to one after scoring on a pass from midfielder Nick George.
Both teams would go scoreless for over 11 minutes until attacker Tyler Thompson scored for Lycoming on a pass from midfielder Shain Quigley. The Warriors scored two more goals to extend the lead to 9-7 on the sticks of Alex Artur and Garrett Huff.
Susquehanna midfielder Jack Garrity cut the lead to 9-8 but Lycoming kept on the pressure when Ream and Collins tacked on their second and fifth goals respectively. Ream would add one more goal after the River Hawks’ Smolokoff would score his second of the game.
Against Muhlenberg, the Mules jumped out to 4-0 lead with 6:31 to go in the first quarter. Muhlenberg freshman attacker Ethan Grossman got the scoring started just a minute into the game. His goal was followed by sophomore attacker Jack Colt and senior attacker Joey Hess to extend the lead to three. Grossman scored his second of the game on a pass from midfielder Drew Rafferty.
Sophomore midfielder Chet Morgis put the River Hawks on the board when he scored on a pass from sophomore attacker Preston Oullette to give the River Hawks their first goal of the game.
Mules’ Grossman scored his third goal just over a minute into the second quarter. Off of a penalty by Muhlenburg, Susquehanna’s Jake Smolokoff scored a power-play goal off of a pass from Porzio from the right side of the net to the left point for Smolokoff to rip it into the upper 90.
Susquehanna scored three unanswered goals to tie the game. Junior midfielder Erik Lanyi, Morgis, which was his second of the game, and Oullette all scored to tie the game at five. Susquehanna had success on the man advantage, scoring on three of the eight opportunities.
However, the Mules would also score three unanswered goals. Sophomore attacker Scott Fayan scored at 11:53 of the fourth quarter to take the lead on an assist from Grossman, followed by two more goals from Grossman.
River Hawks junior midfielder Jack Garrity scored with 30 seconds left in the game on a pass from junior defender Louis Pillari.
Susquehanna will look to get their first win of the season as they return home Saturday, Feb. 24 as they take on the Monarchs of King’s College.
King’s College has yet to play a game this season but last year the Monarchs finished 5-10 on the year and 2-5 in conference play.
The Monarchs also had trouble on the road last season as they went 1-6 compared to their 4-4 record at home.
In the last matchup between the two squads, Susquehanna managed to come out on top with a 13-7 win.
Now graduated Chet McLaughlin led the River Hawks with two goals and two assists and Tzaneteas was right behind him with two goals and one assist on the day.