With an exhausted look in his eyes, senior Matt Petre turned to his teammate and fellow defenseman, Billy Honovich, and gave an honest answer.
‘I guess we came up short,’ Petre said of the team’s effort this weekend against Colgate, which the Stags lost, 13-12, in the game’s final moments. ‘We’ll take that one on the chin right there on defense because 13 goals in just too many.’
Honovich didn’t hesitate with a follow-up.
‘We played a good team,’ Honovich added. ‘We just came up short.’
The Stags (3-2, 1-0 ECAC) have come up short twice this season ‘- the team’s road game in Columbus against former Greater Western Lacrosse League (GWLL) foe Ohio State, and again this past weekend on campus against Colgate.
In both losses, the opposition scored double-digit points, a stark contrast to the cumulative 10 goals that Petre, Honovich and company have held the opposition to in Fairfield’s most recent wins.
Still, a closer look at Fairfield’s games shows that, even in defeat, the Fairfield defense has been the backbone of the team’s success. In fact, given the early season schedule, one can make the case that Petre and Honovich played the best and did more than survive.
They’ve thrived.
In the team’s 8-6 victory against Marist, Petre held attackman Travis Zindel, the Red Foxes’ top scorer and the incumbent Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference (MAAC) Player of the Week, to one goal, which came in an extra-man offense situation.
Only a few days earlier, Zindel totaled five goals in Marist’s win over Canisius.
Zindel, though, is far from the only imposing attackman that Petre has defended this season. In the team’s season opening victory against Delaware, the senior held Curtis
Dickson, a preseason selection to the Tewaarton Trophy Watch List, lacrosse’s version of the Heisman Trophy, and Delaware’s preeminent scoring option, who entered the game having already scored nine goals in UDel’s first two games of the season.
‘Hats off to Matt,’ fellow senior Gary Raniolo said after the game. ‘He was able to shut down an All-American today.’
Perhaps the greatest example of the duo’s stirring defensive effort came this past weekend against Colgate.
Matched up against attackmen Brandon Corp, an all-American and nominee to the US National team, and Kevin Colleluori, last week’s Patriot League Player of the Week, Petre and Honovich held Colgate’s standouts to one goal each, respectively.
‘I thought those two guys did their jobs,’ head coach Andy Copelan said. ‘(Colgate) is one of the best teams in the country, I’m not sure that they get much better than that.
‘In my opinion, Corp is the best player in the country, and I thought we did a fairly decent job of neutralizing him,’ Copelan added.
Regardless of the outcome, Copelan recognized the importance his defense, and that their performance is likely directly connected to Fairfield’s success.
‘We’re a better team now than we were in the beginning of the season, and we’re a better team this spring than we were in the fall,’ Copelan said. ‘As long as we continue to improve here week-by-week, I think hopefully we can finish the season strong.’
Strong … just like his defense.
Leave a Reply