Union, RPI set for DIII tourney
Dutchmen host John Carroll; Engineers face Wesleyan in Virginia
Union men’s lacrosse coach Derek Witheford said he wasn’t sure the Dutchmen would get a home game in the NCAA Division III Tournament.
RPI head coach Scott Hackett-dalgleish wasn’t even certain the Engineers would make the 38-team field.
Both men were happy when the selections were announced on Sunday.
The eighth-ranked Dutchmen (14-2) will open at noon Saturday with a second-round game against
John Carroll on Frank Bailey Field in Schenectady.
No. 18 RPI
(10-5) will face
No. 14 Wesleyan at 3 p.m.
Saturday in a second-round match at Christopher
Newport University in
Newport
News, Va.
The Dutchmen and Engineers will both try to rebound from losses in the semifinals of the Liberty League Tournament last week. Union was upset at home 15-9 by St. Lawrence, while RPI lost 19-10 at defending national champion RIT.
“The team learned you’ve got to play for 60 minutes,” Witheford said. “You can’t let the other team go on a 10-goal run. You can’t beat very many good teams (that are) going on 10goal runs. So we’ve got to play a little better complementary lacrosse and we’ll be in good shape.”
The winner of the Unionjohn Carroll game will play a third-round match at 3 p.m. Sunday on Frank Bailey Field against the winner of Saturday’s second-round contest at 3 p.m. between Lynchburg and Western New England, also in Schenectady.
RPI has lost four of its past five games since upsetting thenno. 1 RIT on April 2 in Troy. That caused some nervous moments when the team gathered to watch the selection show.
“It was interesting,” Hackettdalgleish said. “I think a whirl
wind of emotions from Liberty League semis, ending there, and then watching the games transpire and thinking, hey, certain teams needed to win, and maybe if there were too many upsets, that might bump us out . ... We were certainly elated and it was so fun to watch that raw emotion in the room and that excitement of getting a bid.”
RPI senior attack Connor Glosner, the team leader with 30 goals, gets to play in his first NCAA Tournament game. Like other teams, the Engineers had their 2020 season cut short by the pandemic. Last year, Glosner was a member of RPI’S junior class, which wasn’t allowed on campus because of the school’s COVID restrictions.
“Just getting back out here, just flying around, was super exciting,” said Glosner, from Auburn, N.H. “Getting to play even more now is awesome.”
Glosner said RPI used the week of practice to look inward following its poor finish to the regular season.
“We just have to go back to the basics,” said Glosner, who will go to graduate school at Purdue next year. “Just focus on ourselves, focus on the little things that we were doing well at the beginning of the season, and that’s kind of what we’ve been doing.”
The Rpi-wesleyan winner will meet either No. 3 Christopher Newport or Sewanee at 3 p.m. Sunday in a third-round game in Newport News.
Union senior attack Peter Burnes, the Liberty
League Offensive Player of the Year, plans on returning next season for the extra year of eligibility allowed by the NCAA because of the pandemic. He leads the Dutchmen with 45 goals and 65 points.
“Obviously, that was not how we wanted to close the Liberty League Tournament,” Burnes, from Natick, Mass., said of last week’s loss. “But after that game, we kind of knew we were going to be done and we’re looking forward to playing here (in Schenectady) again. Being able to host tournament games is a huge deal for us.”
The Dutchmen are battle-tested. They won 17-12 at three-time national champion Tufts on March 29 and lost 14-13 at RIT on April 9.
“Especially that Tufts game ... we’re just as good as those guys and can hang with anyone,” said junior midfielder Jake Titus of Sudbury, Mass.