New Paltz, NY — The State University of New York at New Paltz men's lacrosse team made history Tuesday afternoon on South Turf Field.
The Hawks set a program record for goals and registered their largest margin of victory ever in its inception in an impressive performance against a visiting SUNY Delhi team that boasted a five-game winning streak heading into the matchup. SUNY New Paltz's offensive onslaught helped produce a dominating 19-8 win.
"Honestly, I'm pleasantly surprised," said Hawks coach
Dwayne Stewart. "Do I think we have a good program? Absolutely, but what we did today was bigger than what I thought about. I thought we were going to compete hard, but 19-8 is impressive. I'm extremely proud of them. They stayed the course. They listened to the coaching staff and good things happened."
Stewart liked what he saw from his offense in practice the last few weeks, but the young program hadn't translated the production to the field until Tuesday. Coming off tough conference losses against some of the best programs in the SUNYAC in The College at Brockport and SUNY Geneseo, the Hawks regrouped and flexed their offensive prowess throughout the game, scoring in a variety of ways in transition and settled into their sets with 11 different players recording a point in the victory.
"Delhi is a good team. They've been on a winning streak and have been beating some teams," Stewart said. "I didn't see this coming from a mile away from our guys, but this was the best offensive production that we've had since the start of the program against a solid team. We have a lot to work on moving forward, because we did have some mistakes that could hurt us in conference play, but I'm excited where we're at. I'm excited about the process and I'm sure the guys are too."
SUNY New Paltz got the scoring started early with
Thomas Armetta, who set a career-high in points (8), while matching a career-high with four assists, to lead his team to the win, scoring three minutes into the first quarter. The defense then stepped up to kill a 30 second penalty, which led to a quick transition the other way with
James Flanagan finding the top corner of cage for his first of the day.
"He's a captain. We have leadership talks all the time with Tom on and off the clock and we've been waiting for this moment for him, and I'm happy that it happened for him because he was about due," Stewart said. "Hopefully, moving forward his game play continues down this path because we're going to need him when we're going up against the big dogs. I'm extremely proud of him and all of our leaders. We just need to stay the course, so we can seek into the playoffs in the back end."
Armetta gave the Hawks a three-goal lead with about five minutes left in the quarter, as the Broncos threw the ball away on their clear with SUNY New Paltz applying heavy pressure on the ride. Flanagan was credited with the turnover, picked up the loose ball and netted his second. Delhi broke up the shutout a minute later, but the Hawks responded with a three-goal run to take a 6-1 lead with less than a minute to go. However, the visitors trimmed the difference with less than 13 seconds left in the period following a goal by Nico Rivera.
Delhi was hit with a penalty immediately following the second quarter whistle and
Ethan Scully capitalized after a hesitation move to lose his defender before ripping a shot top pipe for the goal.
Joseph Bradbury picked up the ground ball on the ensuing faceoff, which led to a quick score by Flanagan as he juked his defender before finding the back of the cage to notch a hat-trick with nearly 14 minutes still to go in the half.
The Broncos gained some momentum as the period waned, however, as the two teams traded turnovers before a force in front of the net in transition by SUNY New Paltz led to a fast-break opportunity by Delhi the other way. The visitors added another with about six minutes left to trim the Hawks cushion to 8-4, but Armetta got one back as
Aidan Gregory created a turnover on the defensive end with a good check leading to a clear and goal by Armetta, assisted by
Nate Biblowitz.
"Delhi is a very good team, but the team really stepped up to play today," Armetta said. "Usually, we either play down to our opponents or play up and today we really dictated the pace, so I'm really proud of the guys. Everyone kept their foot on the gas, showed no mercy and I'm very proud of our performance today."
The Broncos breathed some life in the third and matched SUNY New Paltz goal-for-goal to tighten the gap to six heading into the fourth, but the Hawks made sure to put the game away in the final 15 minutes.
After earning most their goals in transition in the first half, SUNY New Paltz was patient in its offense in the second, especially in the last quarter. It settled into its sets, let time run off the shot clock and found good looks with all seven goals scored in the period coming from different Hawks.
"The first quarter was all transition. We scored a lot on unsettled offense and was we got into our settled offense… and getting into our offensive package, we started finding the back of the cage and I think it showed that we can be successful in all facets," Stewart said.
Ryan Kaelin got the run started with a goal two minutes in and
Deacon Hill backed him up with his first of the season, finishing on a feed from Flanagan behind the cage. A
Nate Lindsey save on the defensive end led to a good clear and another goal by Armetta with long-pole defenseman
Zachary Leung getting in on the action, running the ball down field and finding space to net his first career score, bringing the cushion to 10.
Anthony Senecal then capped the unanswered run, rifling a shot through traffic for his fourth goal of the season, pushing the lead to 17-6 with about eight minutes remaining.
The Broncos cut the difference to as close as 10 with a goal by Logan Bauer with about seven minutes left, but SUNY New Paltz continued to roll with goals by
John Reese and a highlight play by Bradbury and Biblowitz to cap the prolific offensive performance. Off a save, Lindsey found Bradbury in transition who ran the ball across, but not before trucking his way through a Delhi defender and finding Biblowitz in front of net for their 19th goal of the game with the sideline erupting on the play.
Gallery: (4-5-2022) Men's Lacrosse vs. Delhi 4/5/22
"We run that offense every day in practice, and we really do push it a lot," Armetta said. "It looks good during it, and during game time it doesn't really translate, but today we really put an emphasis of pushing that offense and it actually worked out today, so it was very good performance."
The Hawks won virtually every statistical category. They out-shot the Broncos (50-44), had less turnovers (22-25), converted on all but four clears (26-30), picked up more ground balls (35-24) and SUNY New Paltz's two goalies
Ryan Steinhart and Lindsey combined to make more saves (19) than Delhi's two goalies, Samuel Steng and James Sullivan (11).
Along with Armetta's eight points, he added two ground balls and a caused turnover to his day with Reese following with five goals, two assists and a ground ball. Flanagan finished with three goals, three assists and a caused turnover, while Bradbury (two assists), Senecal (one goal, one assist), Biblowitz (one goal, one assist) and Hill (two goals) each enjoyed multi-point games.
Rafael Fillyaw led the Hawks with three caused turnovers, while Scully, Bradbury and Leung chipped in with seven, five and four ground balls, respectively.
"It's not just about me, we put up 19 goals — shout out Deacon getting his first goal, shout out Johnny doing his thing, Flanny doing his thing, Nate Bibs got some today, so I'm just proud of the team effort not just individual," Armetta said. "The confidence has always been there, was just about putting it together during game time. I know every guy on this field can step on this field and make an impact, so we definitely have some confidence going into the next game and I look forward to the performance."
SUNY New Paltz will look to take its momentum into Saturday when it returns to conference play to face Oswego State on the road at 3 p.m.
Post-Game with Thomas Armetta
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