Danes take on UMBC
Ualbany looks to move up America East standings
The University at Albany men’s lacrosse team plays Maryland-baltimore Country at noon Sunday at John Fallon Field in a game crucial to the Great
Danes’ chances of hosting the America East Tournament next month.
“It’s huge,” Ualbany coach Scott Marr said. “We’ve got to win, there’s no question. We’ve got to win out, really.”
Ualbany (5-3 overall, 3-2 league) sits in fourth place in the America East, 1½ games behind first-place Vermont and a game behind UMBC and Stony Brook in second.
The Great Danes, who have four regular-season games left, have already lost to Vermont and Stony Brook. Ualbany has a rematch waiting at Vermont on Friday but doesn’t play Stony Brook again.
The No. 1 seed will play host to the four-team league tournament with the semifinals on May 6 and the championship match on May 8.
Ualbany is coming off a 13-8 loss at No. 9 Syracuse on Thursday, a game in which the Great Danes were shut out in the fourth quarter.
“There’s a lot of really positive things we did in that game,” Marr said. “We’re just trying to find the chemistry on offense.”
Marr pointed out the Great Danes haven’t been able to put the same offensive unit on the field in each game because of injuries and COVID pauses. They also dismissed star attack Tehoka Nanticoke from the team.
“It’ll be closer than we have been (on Sunday),” Marr said. “We have some lingering injuries, guys that aren’t practicing and we’ve got to make some decisions on guys who aren’t practicing and are they going to play or are we going to dress some different guys. There’s just not a whole of continuity in practice and offensively.”
UMBC (5-1, 4-1) has beaten Vermont and Stony Brook. The Retrievers allow 8.5 goals per game, which ranks sixth-best in Division I.
“They play a different style,” Marr said. “They’re slow. They milk the shot clock and the goaltender (Tommy Lingner) is very good. They’re athletic defensively. They’re an aggressive group and they change things around. They play some zone. They play some man-to-man. We just have to be patient on offense and capitalize when we have opportunities.”