Tuesday, April 06, 2010

BULLDOGS SURGE LATE BUT DENIED COMEBACK AT NO. 20 BROWN, 9-7, TUESDAY NIGHT

Boxscore

PROVIDENCE, R.I. – Bryant scored a quartet of fourth-quarter goals to tie the score at 7-7 Tuesday night on the road against No. 20 Brown but could never get ahead in the intrastate battle, eventually falling to its crosstown rival, 9-7, at Stevenson Field.

Sophomore Max Weisenberg (Long Beach, N.Y.) scored three goals for the visiting Bulldogs (6-4) and added an assist on the evening for a game-best four points while junior captain and longstick middie Anthony Iannello (Lake Ronkonkoma, N.Y.) tallied the game-tier with 5:56 to play in regulation but it wouldn't be enough despite a late comeback that featured a three-goal flurry in a span of 128 seconds.

“This one hurts,” said fourth-year head coach Mike Pressler. “I thought we played well enough to win it. We did our job defensively but we have to find a way to make our shots count.”

The Bears (4-4) sparked the Bulldogs' four-goal run in the fourth, taking three consecutive penalties to give Bryant a three-man advantage, an imbalance Weisenberg took advantage of to complete his hat trick with 11:04 still to play in the game to make the score 7-4 still in Brown's favor.

Three minutes later, sophomore Travis Harrington (Vestal, N.Y.) wrapped around from behind the Bears' cage, curling in for a tough shot that found its target to get the Bulldogs within two.

It would take junior John Truscello (Holbrook, N.Y.) just 40 seconds to keep the run going, taking a great feed from Weisenberg and ripping a one-timer from the right side to close the gap to a single tally, 7-6.

Iannello would cap off the streak at the 5:56 mark with his first goal of the season to knot the score at 7-7, taking control of a quick feed from sophomore goalie Jameson Love (Darien, Conn.) and running up the field to complete the clear. But with no one to help and just Brown goalie Matt Chriss in front of him, Iannello let the shot roll off his stick for the low score.

But, as Pressler points out, Bulldog longpoles converted just one of five such one-on-none shots against the ranked Bears.

“Those are plays by two skilled players [Iannello and rookie Mason Poli] that we have got to make,” he said.

But when pushed, Brown pushed back, and Thomas Muldoon answered for the home side, scoring a side-netting goal to get the Bears back the lead, 8-7, with 4:45 on the clock. David Hawley, who would have three scores on the night for the Bears, recorded the final tally of the evening, unassisted, with 2:46 to play for the 9-7 final.

“We fought hard and got the score tied,” said Pressler, “but they came right back and ended our momentum.”

Hawley paced the Bears with three goals but the home team saw scores from six other sources in the outing. Despite allowing nine goals – the most to any opponent so far this season – the Bulldog held leading scorers Muldoon and Andrew Feinberg to just a single score between them.

“We're Bulldogs, we're battlers, but we lost today's game in our inability to shoot the ball,” said Pressler. “We're playing hellacious defense game in and game out, but we just can't score goals.

“Still, if you told me that Muldoon would get one and Feinberg wouldn't get any [goals], I'd think we'd be in pretty good shape,” he added. “So credit Brown and all its others guys who stepped up big tonight.”

Brown jumped out to a 3-0 lead to open the contest and it took the Bulldogs more than a quarter to recover from the first Bear tally of the night, a Rob Schlesinger goal that found high netting just 10 seconds into the contest.

“They made a really great play,” said Pressler. “And we didn't panic.”

Truscello finally started the Bulldog scoring nearly five minutes into the second quarter, working hard to free his stick of the Brown defensemen he was surrounded by to get the visitors on the board, 3-1.

Nicholas Laster would answer before the end of the half to keep a three-goal lead for the Bears entering the break.

But in the second half, Weisenberg would cut Brown's lead to two, 4-2, with a man-up goal with 9:43 to go in the frame, burying a low shot from the top of the crease thanks to a perfect pass in from rookie Peter McMahon (Wilton, Conn.). McMahon would finish the outing with a pair of assists.

The home side would score the next two before Weisenberg notched his second goal of the game, this one unassisted, with just 9.2 seconds to spare in the third frame to set up a 6-3 score entering the final 15 minutes.

Brown won the ground ball battle, 28-25, while the Bulldogs were led by six apiece from Love and junior faceoff specialist Evan Roberts (West Cornwall, Vt.), who went 8-for-19 from the X on the evening. Chriss made 14 saves between the pipes for the Bears while Love recorded 10 stops on the day.

But the most mystifying statistic of the contest comes in the shots fired category, with Bryant outshooting Brown, 39-26, in the affair, including rattling off 14 in the final frame. But the Bulldogs put just 21 of those shots on goal.

“We had 17 shots in the first half and just one goal,” said Pressler. “To just get one goal can't happen. We have to find a way to take good shots and make them count.”

Bryant wraps up its toughest stretch of the season Saturday afternoon when its travels to Moon Township, Pa. to take on Northeast Conference opponent Robert Morris for the first time in program history (1 p.m.).