Men’s lacrosse survives four-game, eight-day stretch

The Flames men’s lacrosse team came out alive after a grueling eight-day, four-game stretch, sweeping its weekend back-to-back against the UConn Huskies and the West Virginia Mountaineers. Liberty scored a combined 30 goals in its Saturday and Sunday outings, defeating UConn 17-2 and the Mountaineers 13-10. The Flames ended the whole of the four-game stretch 3-1, with their sole loss coming against Virginia Tech.

“I think it feels great (to be done with that stretch of games),” senior long pole Bryn Jungles said after Sunday’s win over West Virginia. “We’re definitely going to enjoy the day off tomorrow. I think this four-game stretch is really good preparation for the (MCLA)
National’s tournament because that’s going to be four games in a week as well. And I think we got to test a lot of our depth today.” 

 

After their loss Wednesday to the Virginia Tech Hokies, the Flames came out swinging against UConn, scoring a litany of goals in the first few minutes, the first coming from sophomore middie Shane Supek fresh off of his own faceoff win. Supek ended game one of the weekend series with 12 faceoff wins in 19 opportunities. 

Sophomore attacker Luke Branham was another standout Flame in the team’s matinée showing against the Huskies, scoring five of the team’s 17 goals. 

After the Flames took care of business against the Huskies, they faced off against the visiting West Virginia Mountaineers, whom the Flames entered Sunday’s game 9-0 all-time against. In those nine straight wins, Liberty averaged a margin of victory of 13.7 goals, making Sunday’s 13-10 win the closest game in the history of the two programs. 

“I think we underestimated them, … (and) we overestimated ourselves and our energy levels,” Jungles said. “We had a lot of guys out here, … (and) they really started feeling the end of those four games in eight days. And we had a rough start at first, but we came back. We won, (and a) win’s a win. So, we’re going to go rest up and come back better.”

The Flames were able to end the first half with a three-goal lead mainly due to the stick of junior midfielder Will Geary, who tallied three goals and two assists, all in the first 30 minutes of play. He added one goal to his number in the third to end the game with four goals and a pair of assists. 

“Yeah, I think he (was) great,” Flames Head Coach Kyle McQuillan said. “I think today was his opportunity to kind of like step up, and our guys have done a really good job of when we haven’t been playing on our best, that guys like Keaton (Mohs) or guys like Will or guys like Luke yesterday really have good games.”

After a barn burner of a first half, both the Flames and the Mountaineers slowed down the scoring in the third quarter, with just three total goals coming from the two squads. 

As the teams entered the fourth, it was clear that the quarter wouldn’t follow the same trends as its predecessor, with the Flames’ senior middie Mohs scoring just 53 seconds into the quarter to extend the Flames’ lead to 5. West Virginia answered with a goal of its own just over a minute later. 

Flames senior attacker Braden Landry countered the counter, scoring his second goal of the afternoon to put the Flames up by five yet again, but that lead wouldn’t last for long. Just over a minute after Landry’s goal, the Mountaineers netted another that sent them on a three-goal run, bringing them within two goals of the Flames with 2:18 left to play. 

Landry stepped in again with just 1:06 left to play in the game as the ball found its way to the pocket of his stick, and he netted it after some brilliant ball movement from Branham and sophomore attacker Luke Campbell. The goal was enough to put away West Virginia and to give Landry his third of the day. 

“I mean, (that goal was) just the product of us moving the ball, finding the open guy,” Landry said. “So as long as we just keep moving it, the guys will be open. So, I found a couple of other guys, too. We just got to bury the shots.”

Ball movement and offense overall have been a struggle for the Flames in this young season, but they’re showing signs of improvement after a tough stretch of schedule.

“For whatever reason, ball movement and spacing still continues to be a little bit of an issue for us,” McQuillan said. “We do not have a problem of having the right athletes. I think we’re just having a tough time this year kind of putting all the pieces together. It’s a very different group from last year. A lot of new guys, a lot of transfers, and for whatever reason, it’s just taken a lot of time to kind of put everything together.”

The Flames emerge from their rough stretch of schedule with a 4-2 record with their next game coming Friday, March 8 against the University of Pittsburgh. 

Palsgrove is the asst. sports editor. Follow him on X