The men’s lacrosse team (2-6 overall, 0-3 Patriot League) fell to Colgate by seven points last Saturday afternoon in Hamilton, N.Y. with the final score reading 14-7.

Colgate opened the game with five unanswered goals within the first seven minutes. Sophomore midfielder John Mathes put a stop to the Raider’s run by scoring the Leopard’s first goal off the feed from junior midfielder Macklin Fitzpatrick. The score was 5-1 at the end of the first quarter. 

The Maroon and White kicked off the second quarter with back-to-back goals from attackers junior Ryan Duncan and sophomore Peter Lehman, bringing the score to 5-3. Colgate responded with a goal and netted another with one second remaining in the half. Lafayette was down 7-3 going into halftime. 

Sophomore Charlie Cunniffe contributed two goals in the third quarter to work to close the gap, but the Raiders outscored the Leopards and brought the score to 11-5 going into the final quarter. 

“Something that we’ve been dealing with a lot is playing a game and people saying, ‘wow, you played that team hard’, and this year we’re trying to get past that and know that it’s not enough just to play a team hard when we want to win,” Duncan said. 

The Maroon and White played for a comeback in the final period. Duncan and sophomore attacker Kalman Kraham launched the fourth quarter by netting the first two goals, bringing the score to 11-7. Colgate responded with three back-to-back goals, leaving the final score 14-7.

“Something that we usually do well, and that we did well versus Colgate, was competing. But we talked about competing with character and executing our game plan,” Duncan said. “So we competed hard, but we didn’t execute our game plan, and that’s what hurt us.”

Colgate won 20-of-25 duels in the middle at the faceoff and secured 17 saves. The Leopards were led by Cunniffe and Duncan, who each scored two goals. 

Duncan emphasized the contributions of his teammates senior attacker George Enman and sophomore midfielder Jacob Freeman who assisted Duncan on one of his goals.

“Both my goals were assisted, and that came from guys like Jacob Freeman swinging the ball and George Enman setting a good picking side,” Duncan said. “It feels good to have teammates that support you and help you succeed.”

Lehman contributed two assists and Mathes added one. Junior midfielder Dean Carnival won three of Lafayette’s face-offs and senior goalie Ryan Ness racked up eight saves. 

“Looking back again, I see plays like Dean Carnival coming from the bench and just giving us a spark from the face off that we needed, and Ryan Ness had a lot of big saves inside that helped keep the game in reach,” Duncan said. 

The team looks forward to their game tomorrow as they will be traveling to Massachusetts to compete against Boston University, ranked 18th in the country.

The team plans to prepare by watching film and focusing on improving their game.

“They’re a ranked opponent, but we’re just focused on going one and zero every week,” Duncan said. “Our past games are nothing but learning experiences and the way to go one and zero this week is just believing that a win is possible.”