The rain fell softly upon Lessing Field Tuesday afternoon. A few hundred feet away in the depths of the Walsh Athletic Center, men’s lacrosse huddled and prepped for yet another Eastern Coastal Athletic Conference (ECAC) showdown against Massachusetts.
The game, as it turns out, was moved to Alumni Field, a reflection of a season marked by change, unpredictably and a few growing pains.’
Fairfield fell to UMass, 12-6, dropping to a .500 record for the first time since an early-season loss to Colgate, while also suffering the team’s fourth consecutive loss.
Impressive starts and slow finishes seem to be a recurring theme for Fairfield, but this year is the clear exception to the rule.
Aside from the obvious growing pains that come with a young offense and a first-year head coach, Fairfield has, on occasion, shown flashes of brilliance.
‘I think communication is critical, execution is critical and I think having a workman-like attitude is critical,’ head coach Andy Copelan said after the team’s last win, a 10-8 win against Vermont on March 31.
‘And I think we’ve shown a few of those qualities and characteristics, but we haven’t yet shown the ability to put it all together,’ he added.
Putting it all together, however, only comes as a product of maturation, and the Stags youngest contributors continue to grow on the field.
Freshmen midfielder Brent Adams and attackman John Snellman have the look of future ECAC studs and, already,’ freshman goalkeeper Charlie Cipriano, a three-time ECAC Rookie of the Week, has established himself as one of the conference’s best talents.
‘Yeah, we’re maturing,’ senior defenseman Matt Petre said. ‘We’re maturing in the sense that every game we come out we are fighting hard.’
Those lessons – coping with the losses and showing fight – coupled’ with more experience and as good of a recruiting class as any the program has ever seen on its way in for 2010, is enough for me to make one bold prediction: things will be a lot different come this time next season.
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