Liberty Flames Men’s Lacrosse team wins 17-6 in home opener
The men’s lacrosse team opened its spring season with a thumping 17-6 win over University of Central Florida Saturday, Feb. 16, lashing in seven goals during the second quarter as the Flames rapidly outpaced the Knights.
Dominating throughout Saturday’s game, the Flames outscored the Knights in every quarter, putting 10 goals past UCF goalie Christopher Cacciatore in the first half alone. In his first regular season game for Liberty, transfer sophomore attackman Thomas Pinel spearheaded the Flames offense throughout much of the first half, scoring four of Liberty’s second-quarter goals.
With 2019’s new recruits, including Pinel and freshman faceoff specialist Cole Jankowsky, getting their first regular season experience for the Flames, Head Coach Kyle McQuillan was impressed by their determination to perform.
CLUTCH — The Flames lacrosse team defeated UCF 17-6 Saturday, Feb. 16.
“I think overall our freshmen class is very, very strong — guys like Cole and Pinel that I think are going to make an impact right away,” McQuillan said. “But I think there are a lot of guys behind the scenes who have been able to push guys in practice, and there’s been a lot of competition that’s gone on for starting positions. ”
From the first faceoff, Jankowsky demonstrated the value he adds to the Flames, winning each of his faceoffs in the first quarter and kickstarting an authoritative Flames performance that would ultimately seal a win by an 11-goal margin.
Aided by Jankowsky’s efficiency, the Flames got off to a roaring start, scoring two rapid-fire goals within the first five minutes as UCF struggled to get a meaningful touch of the ball in the opening quarter.
Restoring the Flames two-goal lead after J.D. Brady scored for UCF at 7:19, junior midfielder Derrick Esh lashed in his first goal out of his eventual tally of five to make the score 3-1, with the Flames starting to demonstrate their offensive depth.
“It definitely was a ground-breaking game just to see where our offense is at,” Esh said. “We tried to get up by as much as we can, get our second and third strings in and just get them a lot of experience because we do have a solid offensive group and we want to be able to use everyone on the field at any time, so we can have as many legs as we can.”
Going into the second quarter, the Flames hit their stride in offense, outscoring the Knights 7-1. After a highlight reel of first-half goals, including a rasping shot by Pinel into the bottom left corner of Cacciatore’s goal, the Flames walked off the field at halftime up 10-2.
Though a commanding lead can sometimes lead to complacency, the third quarter saw the Flames continue to add to their lead, scoring three goals to the Knights one.
CLUTCH — The Flames lacrosse team is 1-0 on the season
However, the Flames struggled to stay disciplined throughout the quarter, going a man down on three separate occasions, an issue that Coach McQuillan plans to address moving forward.
“We can sit in here and we can blame the refs for not calling the game that we wanted, but at the end of the day we just have to be more disciplined,” McQuillan said. “(We) just looked really sloppy on the offensive side of the ball from start to finish. We have to stay out of the penalty box — I know it was our first game of the season, . . . so there’s definitely going to be some rust, but there was just a little bit too much.”
The fourth quarter saw the Flames score four, but they conceded three as they continued to give up penalties in a defensively sloppy end to the game. As the game drew near its final score of 17-6, freshman midfielder Logan Cahill scored one of the highlights of the game, blasting a right-handed shot past the goalie from a couple yards outside the crease.
After last season’s trip to nationals, Liberty’s opening victory was a promising start to a year where the Flames hope to make nationals again and win the SELC division.
DASH — The Flames led the Knights throughout the entire game.
The team next plays at East Carolina University Saturday, Feb. 23 for their first game on the road this season.
Though Saturday’s game was a strong reminder of Liberty’s potential this season, junior attackman Elijah Britton knows the team needs to continue to grow as a unit.
“Obviously there’s a few things we need to work on as a team. It’s the first game of the season, so there’s a lot of stuff we can learn. UCF played well — I think it was just a good first game to see where we were,” Britton said.