David Otero
The C.W. Post men’s lacrosse team suffered their first loss of the season on Saturday, March 26th, falling 8-7 in overtime to the rival Dowling Golden Lions (6-1). The Pioneers were unbeaten in their first nine games, but the Golden Lions presented a tough challenge for the top-ranked team in the ECC standings.
The Pioneers jumped out to the early lead after a goal from senior attacker Nick Coric with 8:52 left to play in the first quarter. Just 38 seconds later, senior midfielder Mike Messina tacked on another goal to give Post a 2-0 advantage. At the end of the first quarter, the Pioneers led 3-1, but the second quarter was a much different story. The Golden Lions dominated every aspect of the game and took over the second quarter. The Lions shut out the Pioneers in the second quarter 4-0 behind two goals from junior midfielder Vito Demola, who now has 23 goals on the season for Dowling. At halftime, the score was 5-3 in favor of Dowling, and everyone knew that this game would come down to the wire.
An early third quarter score by Dowling made the score 6-3 Golden Lions, but Messina did all he could to keep the Pioneers in the game. He scored two goals within one minute of each other to make it a one-point game entering the fourth quarter of play.
Late in the fourth quarter, Demola added another goal for the Golden Lions, making it a 7-5 game with 3:35 seconds left for the Pioneers to make a comeback. The Pioneers did just that. With just over 30 seconds left to play, Coric sliced through the Dowling defenders to give the Pioneers their sixth goal of the game, only one behind the Golden Lions. The Pioneers weren’t finished there as junior attacker Eddie Plompen notched his 32nd goal of the season with a game-tying goal with only three seconds left in regulation.
However in overtime, the Golden Lions quickly ended the game when only 12 seconds into the overtime session, Dowling won the faceoff and Louis Riley ended the game with his first goal of the year to give the Pioneers a tough 8-7 overtime loss.
The Pioneers’ next game is scheduled for Saturday, April 2nd at 12 p.m. at home on Hickox Field against the NYIT Bears (4-2). The teams will face-off against each other almost exactly one year to the day since their last meeting. In their last matchup, the Pioneers won 13-11.
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