BROCKPORT, N.Y. --- The Brockport Golden Eagles men's lacrosse team fell by one goal in a pair of games over the last week. First a cross county rivalry with Nazareth College ended with a Golden Flyers buzzer beater. Second the Golden Eagles would open conference play hosting the Oswego Lakers, fall 9-8 despite scoring the last goal of the game. Brockport was backstopped by a masterclass of 37 saves by senior goalie Cam Kuzniar. Offensively Brockport was led by sophomore midfielder Nate Askin, totaling seven goals and three assists between the two games.
Nazareth 11-10
The Brockport Golden Eagles first hosted the Nazareth Golden Flyers on Wednesday. A team Brockport hasn't beaten since they became a non-conference regular for one another since 2018. that record wouldn't change as Nazareth's Matthew Farrington scored a buzzer beater to win for the Golden Flyers in regulation.
Askin and Jhovanny Olivares opened Brockport's scoring in the first quarter, they would lead the offense on the day with three goals to the former and four to the latter. Askin scored first unassisted while Olivares utilized the two-man game with Ryan McCarthy to create space for his shot. Despite Nazareth scoring first, Brockport proved to stay on pace with the Golden Flyers, ending the first quarter down 3-2.
Brockport maintained their two goals per quarter pace through the second. unfortunately for them Nazareth notched four goals in the period bringing the halftime score to 7-4. Jack Peterson scored the first of Brockport's goals, on the man-up as Olivares sent him the pass in the hole. The next was from junior attacker Ben Hay scored his first of two on the day as the big bodied inside shooter for Brockport's attack.
In the third it was yet again a two goal performance for the Golden Eagles, coming by way of the same duo as the first quarter. First Askin scored on the dodge. Olivares had the second, coming once again from the wing with an outside shot after making light work of the short stick matched up on him. The Golden Eagles defense was playing a strong zone that forced Nazareth to put up bad shots that missed wide for much of the game. this proved most helpful in the third quarter as the Golden Eagles limited the Golden Flyers to only two goals, ending the third quarter 9-6.
The fourth was where it all turned around for Brockport, the attack and midfield started to click together on offense despite Nazareth scoring first and extending their lead to four. With seven minutes left Brockport looked down as they needed to score four goals. Hay sent a pass up to a wide open Olivares for Brockport's first goal 33 seconds later. It was Olivares unassisted to make it a two goal deficit and once Carson Colucci sent the pass up to a wide open Askin, it was only a one goal game. Brockport only took two minutes to make a 3-0 run.
Two minutes later it was Nate Askin down the alley however he picked up a double team and was driven passed goal line extended. He settled, waited for a defensive shift and made a move to find his angle, at the last second he dished to Hay who was standing square with the Nazareth goalie on the crease and he finished it high-to-high. With 6.7 seconds left in the game, fans thought they were going to get free lacrosse. Coach Rob Randall and the Golden Flyers had other ideas. With 6.7 seconds left, Farrington cut past goal line extended from behind the goal and found his angle for the shot, dodged past his defender and scored high near post on Kuzniar.
The Golden Eagles left that game on a high despite the loss as they knew they would quickly have to turn to SUNYAC play.
Oswego 9-8
The Brockport Golden Eagles fell in their opener to the SUNYACs at home this Saturday to SUNY Oswego. It was a one goal game almost throughout the full 60 minutes but the Lakers finally pulled away to two goals and Brockport couldn't pull it all the way back.
The first quarter showed us how physical and slow the game would be, both offenses utilizing the full shot clock as rain and wind came blowing down onto the field. The face-off battle was already won in the quarter as Drew DiPalma only won face-offs on violations to Oswego's Logan Prescott who went 16-20 on the night. Carson Colucci and Nate Askin led Brockport to a lead in the quarter despite Oswego scoring first. Colucci had two goals while Askin scored and assisted one goal each.
In the second Brockport came out with momentum rolling from Colucci's second goal, DiPalma earned a true win at the face off dot and Ben Hay opened the scoring just 1:14 into the second quarter. Hay notched another one a few minutes later and propelled Brockport to a 5-2 lead. Unfortunately for the Golden Eagles, that prompted the Lakers to go on a 3-0 run of their own and tie the game up at five a piece heading into the half time break.
Brockport came out and once again won the first face-off of the quarter as Chris Bock came away with the ground ball. Jack Peterson had the first goal of the day after his first half buzzer beater was called no goal, scoring in front of the net on an assist from Ryan McCarthy. Oswego responded two minutes later with their own goal scorer from Horseheads, Gavin Elston. No more goals were scored until the final two minutes of the quarter when Elston put away another one to give the Lakers their first lead since the first quarter.
Brockport opened the fourth quarter scoring, tying up the game four minutes into the period. Nate Askin finished notched his second goal on the day but it was answered with two Oswego goals. With four minutes to go, the lead proved insurmountable as Brockport fell 9-8 to the Lakers in opening weekend of the SUNYACs.