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4/17/2011- Lacrosse
St. Mary's loses to old nemesis East Grand Rapids
ORCHARD LAKE – The long standing competition feud with East Grand Rapids continued Saturday as the visiting Pioneers beat St. Mary’s (4-4) 14-11 in what was a closer score than the outcome indicated.
The Pioneers, behind five goals from EGR’s All-American attack Jacob Corretti, gave up the first two goals, but put the pressure on the Eaglets all afternoon, as East Grand Rapids never trailed after going ahead 3-2 in the first quarter.
“We compete hard…our guys busted their guts,” said Greg Normand, St. Mary’s head coach. “But playing lacrosse at a high level is more than just playing hard…you have to play smart and that was something we didn’t do at times today.”
The Eaglets committed 23 unforced errors including a non-releasable illegal stick (the offender can not leave the penalty box for the desired time even if the opponent scores a goal) penalty after scoring three goals in the third period to pull within one goal of the Pioneers.
East Grand Rapids scored three goals during the penalty to push the game out of reach, or so it seemed.
“We’re down 9-5 in the middle of the third quarter….we call timeout to see what might be working, we come out and score three straight goals to close the score to 9-8 and then we get a stick penalty,” Normand said. “We can’t make those mistakes at this level…..you just can’t make those mistakes.”
Normand said he realizes that this is a young team that will obviously make mistakes, but at some point you have to improve or it’s going to be a long season.
“We ask some of short stick guys to make hard passes, which is normal in lacrosse….we still continue to make soft, un-catchable passes during the games….and this can’t continue,” he said. “There has to be some lacrosse improvement every week no matter how hard you play the game. I admire the players for their effort, but we have to get smarter and I mean right now.”
Chris Brecht, the team’s defensive coordinator, said he continues to preach about talking on defense every day at practice.
“We practice communications every day and then we get in games and sometimes the communications break down and that’s not something we can live with playing at the level we compete,” Brecht said.
St. Mary’s did score the first two goals by Nick Parr and Sean Dupack, but the Pioneers score five unanswered goals in the first period to lead 5-2.The Eaglets closed the gap to 6-5 with goals from Parr and Evan Considine, but Coretti scored two of
his game high five goals to push the score to 9-5. St. Mary’s did close the score to 9-8 before being charged with an illegal stick penalty. The Eaglets never recovered enough to make a run at beat East Grand Rapids.
“EGR pushed the score to 13-8 in the fourth quarter, but we had to press and we couldn’t recover. We did score two goals late in the game to make it interesting, but just like the University of Detroit game, it wasn’t enough when we needed a momentum swing,” Normand said.
Defensively, St. Mary’s received strong games from P.J. Walters, who racked up an assist and seven ground balls. Brecht said Paul Graham and Michael Killian also played strong games defensively. Brecht also praised freshman goalie Peter Miller for making some big saves.
“I think we’ve found a goalie for the future because he seems to be improving every game,” Brecht said. “We made a number of close range saves that held us in this game when we needed the save.”
The Eaglets were led offensively by Nick Parr, a sophomore attack, who netted four goals. Evan Considine had five points on three goals and two assists and continues to lead St. Mary’s in scoring with 28 points in eight games. Other goal scorers for St. Mary’s was two goals from Sean Dupack and two goals from Spencer McInnis.
The Eaglets entertain Clarkston Tuesday before taking an eight-day spring break. St. Mary’s returns from break to host Troy on Saturday, April 30, 2011.
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