Cortland Standard .net

By ALAN BUTLER
Sports Editor
SYRACUSE — Twice in the second half the SUNY Cortland men’s lacrosse team battled back from behind to take the lead away from RIT in Wednesday night’s match-up of nationally-ranked upstate rivals.
On both occasions inside Syracuse University’s Carrier Dome, resilient RIT responded with three-goal spurts before coming away narrow 12-11 winners over the just-as-gritty Red Dragons.
That’s why both teams exited the premises encouraged at this early stage of the 2015 campaign, second-ranked RIT off to a perfect 4-0 start while sixth-ranked Cortland now stands 1-2 with a pair of frustrating one-goal setbacks on its resume.
“Definitely we showed we can fight,” said senior midfielder Matt Rakoczy afterwards, the Cortland team captain with a pair of goals including the game’s final tally on a man-up fling from the right wing netted a mere 7.9 seconds from the finish. “We didn’t give up, so that’s definitely a high note to take from it. Obviously, we don’t like to be on the other end.”
Starting late in the third quarter, Cortland’s last rally turned a 9-7 deficit into into a 10-9 lead with goals by Rakoczy, midfielder Billy Davis and midfielder Mike Cantelli. When senior Cantelli found the upper right-hand corner 1:20 into the final period for his third goal of the contest, the Red Dragons were ahead for only the third time all evening.
The next three goals came off of RIT sticks, however, starting with 7:27 remaining when Eddie Kiesa deflected a Ryan Lee pass past Cortland goalie Scott Tota — who had a huge game for the Red Dragons with a dozen saves.
And extra-man goal from Kyle Aquin followed at 4:11 and just over a minute later Chad Levick emerged from a ground ball scramble in front of the Cortland crease and converted for a 12-10 RIT advantage.
Cortland did create a turnover in the final minute and took advantage of an RIT penalty with 14.9 seconds left to get Rakoczy’s second goal, but the Tigers ran out the final seven seconds when productive long-stick midfielder Matt Hossack won the game’s final faceoff.
So this was your typical RIT-Cortland match-up, considering six of the last eight meetings between the two schools have been one-goal affairs. Those one-goal battles have been evenly split with three wins apiece.
There were six ties and five lead changes this time around.
“THE HOLE WE DUG wasn’t so big. They’re just the most opportunistic team I’ve ever seen in all the years I’ve been coaching,” said Cortland coach Steve Beville, whose team trailed 4-1 early when seven first quarter turnovers provided a helping hand to RIT.
“They just seem to get those big GBs (ground balls) in front of the cage and take advantage of subbing and all those things they did today,” added Beville. “We were physical with them and they knew they were in a ball game. It could have gone either way today. We just need to make a few plays at the end of the game. We didn’t, they did.”
Coming up with those crucial plays is what pleased RIT coach Jake Coon, the Homer Central graduate who went on to be an All-America goalie at Nazareth and an assistant coach at Division I Massachusetts before getting the Tigers’ program roaring.
“That certainly showed some character,” said Coon of RIT’s response to every Cortland challenge.
“I thought both teams played hard today,” he added. “They were applying pressure to us and we were applying pressure to them, just because of the speed of the game and how fast we were playing. It was a little sloppy at times because the guys were going hard, which is a good thing. It was a great lacrosse game, if you ask me.”
Both teams’ top scorers were effective, Cortland junior attackman Zach Hopps with three goals and a pair of assists while RIT sophomore Canadian Lee also had a hat trick to go along with an assist.
Turnovers continue to be a Cortland problem, the Red Dragons with 23 this time out. But several stellar Tota saves and faceoff man Pat Baldwin winning 14-of-24 faceoffs — including dominating at the X in the second and third stanzas — were plusses for the Red Dragons.
“Tota played fantastic. Give him credit for playing well,” said RIT’s Coon. “Faceoffs and goaltending... I thought they had a great day and we had an average day. That hurts.”
CORTLAND HAS HAD over 20 turnovers in all three games, coming into the RIT contest having lost 14-13 at Union before beating Albright 10-6 at home.
“The past two games turnovers have definitely been a problem and that will cost you against anybody, especially a team as good as RIT,” noted Cortland’s Rakoczy.
The Red Dragons also got a goal and an assist from sophomore T.J. deLyra off the second midfield grouping, while attackman James Stavrakis also scored. Stavrakis converted in front off a Hopps feed with 8:12 to go in the third quarter to put the Red Dragons up 7-6 — their first lead since an game-opening Hopps goal on a put-back off a save made by Nazareth goalie Pat Johnston.
RIT got a goal from Lee just 22 seconds after that go-head Stavrakis strike, the first of three straight for the Tigers that forced Cortland back into comeback mode.
Hossack had a goal and an assist as well as securing some key faceoffs for RIT, while senior midfielder Brad Gillies savored a six-assist outing. Kiesa had a three goals, Aquin two goals and an assist while Mike Gulasey and Steven Ricci also had goals.
“We played hard. That’s the one thing, we played hard,” said Beville, whose team is on the road Saturday to face Western New England in Springfield, Massachusetts.
“Our young defense has to come together a little bit more, do a little better job on the clear especially early on, but we’re very pleased with the effort, pleased with the attitude,” he added. “These guys are here together and they’re a team. They’re certainly not going to put their head down and cry. I think we’re going to work hard to get better and keep plugging away this year.”
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DRAGON TALES: Homer Central grad Alec Sovocool saw time as a defensive midfielder for the Tigers, Coach Coon saying the sophomore will play there as well as be a long-stick middie. Sophomore attackman Beau Riley from Homer is out with a stress fracture for RIT, which Coon indicated could be a season-ending injury leading to a redshirt situation. Another ex-Trojan is junior defenseman Anthony Contento.... Defensive midfielder Luke McNaney also picked up an assist for the Red Dragons, who were out-shot 38-31 and narrowly lost the ground ball battle 40-38.... This was RIT’s second game of the season at the Carrier Dome, Cortland officially the home team for this match-up. The Tigers beat No. 3 Stevenson 17-10 to open the season at the Dome and will return this Saturday against No. 5 Cabrini.... This was RIT’s third straight win over Cortland, including an 18-11 victory last year at the Dome. “You have to give our guys credit for battling back and showing some character. We’ll take it. Anytime you can beat the Dragons you have to be happy about that,” said Coon.