The men’s lacrosse team faced off against FDU-Florham on Saturday afternoon at Schmidt Stadium. The Colonels fell to the visiting Devils 11-9 in a close MAC Freedom contest, the loss bringing Wilkes’ record to 0-2 in conference and 4-7 overall.

It was a slow scoring affair for much of the first half. FDU-Florham’s defense was sitting in a zone, which stagnated the Wilkes attackers. The Colonels were up 2-1 late in the first quarter before a goal from FDU tied things up.

That goal kickstarted a 5-1 stretch spanning through the first and second quarters for the Devils as they took a 6-3 lead into halftime.

“I thought we played a little slow today on offense,” said head coach Curtis Jaques. “I think that some of the looks that we like to generate in the full field usually, we did not cash in on a lot of those looks. We just didn’t play as hard as we could in transition.”

The Colonels knew that they needed to play with more pace as they tried to climb back into the game. The Wilkes offense did just that as they came alive shortly after halftime. Back-to-back goals from senior midfielder Alex

Myers, the second of which was the 100th point of his career, trimmed the deficit to just one.

“It was a huge accomplishment and I have been working my entire career to get to a hundred points,” said Myers. “It is a huge milestone for only playing two- and-a-half years because of COVID-19, so I am really excited and proud of myself.”

Wilkes had all of the momentum on their side following the milestone goal. However, the two teams traded a pair of goals before the Devils scored three unanswered to take full control of the game. The Colonel defense had been dominant up until that point in the game, but a few breakdowns led to the FDU run.

“I think on defense we need to improve our communication,” said senior goalkeeper Ryan Lasher. “We need to go along together as a team and just trust each other more.”

Lasher finished the day with 11 saves and a save percentage of 0.500.

Despite being down, Wilkes fought until the very end. They were able to cut the lead down to two multiple times. However, the clock was not in their favor, and eventually they ran out of time.

“I think our faceoff group did a fantastic job today, which is always a huge plus for us,” said Jaques. “We had eight assists on nine goals, so our team was sharing the rock. All in all, I think the boys battled today, we just need to see the ball drop in the back of the net a

few more times.”
Wilkes will look to earn their first

conference win of the year as they travel to take on the Arcadia University Knights tonight at 7 p.m.