New York rallies, spoils rookies’ home debuts
DELAWARE, Ohio — Ohio lacrosse fans got a fast introduction to Machine midfielder Peter Baum last night during an 11-9 loss to the New York Lizards.
Baum, the No. 1 overall pick in the Major League Lacrosse draft last year, elected to play on a West Coast-based tour rather than with the Machine last season.
But it didn’t take long for the former Colgate star to show an announced crowd of 3,944 at Ohio Wesleyan’s Selby Stadium what it might have missed.
Baum scored two goals in the first 3:03 of the first quarter and matched Machine rookie Tom Schreiber with a hat trick in their home debuts. But New York (2-2) got four goals from attackman Tommy Palasek, scored on two of three power plays, won 15 of 24 faceoffs and spoiled the Machine’s home opener.
“We need to do better,” Machine coach Bear Davis said. “We’re not playing to our full potential. I don’t think we’re even scratching it. We need to get back to work.”
The Machine (1-3) lost its third straight.
“Regardless of what our record is, even if we were 4-0, I’d still feel the same way,” Davis said. “We need to get better. I don’t know if the scores right now are indicative of if we’re good or not. We’re just not playing very good on offense right now. Our defense is holding people, but we need to get better.” The Machine built a quick 3-0 lead and appeared poised to run away with the first home game of its third season in the league, but the Lizards scored three straight goals to close the first quarter and tie it at 3.
“That shot clock, you can’t dictate tempo the way you can in the college game,” said Baum, who has 10 goals in his first four MLL games. “If we had a 3-0 lead in college, we would take a 2-minute possession and grind them down and maybe get a dunk and hopefully score.”
Lizards attackman Rob Pannell finished a run from behind the net for his ninth goal of the season to give New York its first lead early in the second, and the first half ended with the score tied at 5.
Machine faceoff specialist and former Ohio State standout Eric O’Brien scored off a run from midfield and Machine midfielder Kyle Harrison scored in the first goal of his home debut to give Ohio a 7-5 lead early in the third. But the Lizards ended the third with a 5-1 run, including three goals by Palasek, to take a 10-8 lead into the fourth.
Palasek, who entered with two goals in two games, opened the scoring in the final quarter with a diving finish at the far post for his fourth goal.
“They had their run and we never really got ours,” Davis said. “We need to do a better job. It’s as simple as that. We had 15 total shots in the first half and had only five go in. That’s shooting 33 percent. That’s not good enough. We’re getting shots, but we have to put them in.”
Lizards goalie Drew Adams finished with 12 saves, including a lastsecond, two-point try from midfield by Machine defenseman Max Schmidt.