Cortland Standard .net

By ALAN BUTLER
Sports Editor
Now eight games into the season, the SUNY Cortland men’s lacrosse team had been anxiously waiting for an offensive outburst.
That arrived on this well-chilled Saturday afternoon, when sub-freezing temperatures could not deter a torrid second quarter scoring spree that carried the Red Dragons to a 17-11 win over visiting Montclair State.
“We’ve been waiting a while for it,” admitted senior midfielder Billy Davis, who had a goal and an assist while Cortland was turning a 3-3 second quarter deadlock into a 10-3 halftime cushion to pretty much settle this meeting between nationally-ranked Division III non-conference foes at the Stadium Complex.
Eleven different Red Dragons scored goals as 16th ranked Cortland improved its record to 4-4 overall — with all four losses to other ranked opponents. Montclair State, ranked 20th in last week’s national poll, headed back to New Jersey with a 5-3 record.
“We’ve been waiting for some of these guys to have a game and we really decided to go with middie by committee today and I think it really paid off with playing a lot of guys,” said Cortland coach Steve Beville. “Some guys stepped up. Mike Hart had a great game for us and it was a great effort on both sides of the ball.”
Sophomore North Carolina native Hart had three goals and an assist, while Davis finished with two goals and a pair of assists as the middie by committee proved to be a big success.
Seven Cortland midfielders were responsible for 11 goals and seven assists in Cortland’s biggest goal output of this season. And junior Pat Baldwin dominated faceoffs — winning 19-of-23 on the day including eight in the second quarter when Montclair State was out-scored 8-1 — and also tallied twice off clean wins at the X.
And this was a Cortland team missing injured senior Matt Rakoczy, who was the top scoring midfielder with nine goals and four assists prior to the Montclair match-up.
“WE’VE BEEN TRYING to find those combinations and what works best. Today’s plan was to just keep platooning them in and give a bunch of guys a shot,” said Coach Beville. “Matt’s out and we’re going to take it slow with him and hope he heals up, but he’s not far away. In the meantime, we’ve got to get this kind of production from other guys and we’re hoping we can continue that.”
Mike Cantelli, T.J. deLyra, Austin Hope and Homer Central graduate Hunter Osborne all scored from the Cortland midfield, while Mike Trass picked up a pair of assists. James Stravrakis and Matt Savlov had two-goal outings on attack, where Zach Hopps and frosh Devin Phelps also scored.
Cortland held a 39-29 shot advantage, Brett Mangan with three goals and two assists to go along with Michael Jervic’s three-goal hat trick for the vanquished Red Hawks. Scott Tota finished with a half-dozen saves in the Cortland goal.
“We just worked our tails off all day, whether it be on the ground balls or running it out and getting away from pressure,” said Davis of the formula for victory. “We’ve got a lot of depth and we can really run some teams into the ground, so it’s a good thing to have.”
Take away Cortland’s second quarter outburst and Montclair State was more than competitive, though the Red Hawks’ five-goal fourth quarter came when Coach Beville had gone to his bench.
“Honestly, this was the first game where we’ve had this kind of struggle, so it will be good for us to learn from this in moving forward,” said rookie head coach Mike Schambach, whose Red Hawks held 1-0 and 2-1 first quarter leads.
“We’ve got to get back to moving the ball better, better spacing on offense and taking a few pages from their book,” added Schambach. “They really moved the ball well and got a lot of different players involved. And faceoffs were big. In terms of momentum, in that second quarter we never really recovered from those couple of minutes there.”
MONTCLAIR STATE WAS all even at 3-3 early in the second stanza when Cortland scored three goals in less than a minute, starting when Savlov tucked away a point-blank shot from a heads-up Hopps pass.
Baldwin gobbled up the ensuing faceoff and scored seven seconds later, and Hopps ripped home a shot off a Davis assist scant moments later. With Baldwin keeping possession in Cortland sticks with his faceoff dominance, it only got worse for the Red Hawks.
Phelps scored a man-up goal with 9:23 left in the opening half. On two occasions with flags down after Montclair penalties, Savlov and Davis converted — with the Davis shot glancing off visiting goalie Lucas Jones before tricking into the net. When Hart started working on his hat trick with his first goal, Cortland had a 10-3 lead to take into its halftime chat.
Montclair State never got closer than six goals the rest of the way.
“Baldwin’s been outstandings all year, he really has. He’s kept us in a few games we didn’t win,” said Cortland’s Beville of his main faceoff man. “When everybody steps up, with the combination of him winning faceoffs, we’re pretty tough.”
So don’t let the four losses fool you, as Cortland heads confidently into a 7 p.m. Wednesday night hosting of another nationally-ranked foe in upstate rival Ithaca College.
“We’ve had a rough past but we’ve got a good future in front of us,” said Davis.