The men's and women's lacrosse teams split their recent games, with the men winning a nail-biter over Oneonta and the women taking a sound beating from Buffalo State.
On Saturday, April 5, the men's team traveled to Oneonta and opened their SUNYAC season with a 13-12 double overtime win over the Red Dragons.
The Knights had some early success against the Oneonta defense, surging ahead to take a 10-4 lead with 4:25 remaining in the first half. Then, the tables were turned as Oneonta's defense clamped down and held the Knights scoreless for almost 28 minutes and went on a seven-goal surge to take an 11-10 lead with 10:01 remaining in the fourth quarter.
"More than anything else, we relaxed and Oneonta played very hard in the third quarter," said coach Jim Lyons. "Against good teams you can't take time off, especially not an entire quarter. Once we started to play with more purpose in the fourth quarter, we got back on track."
Junior Tom Costanza broke the Knight's scoring drought at the 6:32 mark with his second goal of the day to tie the game at 11.
Fellow junior Dylan Bittlingmaier broke the tie with his fourth goal of the day to give the Knights a 12-11 lead, but Oneonta refused to lose just yet and sent the game in to overtime with just three seconds remaining in regulation.
The first overtime passed without either team succeeding in finding the net and then, during the second overtime, junior Justin Rand snuck a shot past Oneonta's goalie with 2:26 remaining to give the Knights the victory.
Bittlingmaier added an assist to go with his team-high four goals and sophomore Dennis Constanza had 12 saves to earn his sixth win of the season as Geneseo improved to 6-1.
Lyons pointed to junior Steve Duflo's play as a key part of the Knights success.
"I was very happy with Steve's play; he played consistently well, even when things got bad in the third," he said.
Sophomore Ray Ryan added a goal and three helpers, while senior Steve Hutton and first year Craig Lange netted two goals with one assist each.
Up next for the men's squad is an away match on Saturday, April 12 at Morrisville.
The women's team, unfortunately, was unable to match the success of the men's team as they fell to Buffalo State on Tuesday, April 8 by a score of 20-12.
The loss was Geneseo's first to the Bengals in 13 games. The Lady Knights fell behind early by a score of 3-0 until senior Maggie Benham scored two of her four goals and classmate Kasie Collins added a goal of her own to tie the game.
Geneseo then managed to grab their lone lead of the game as junior Laura Kitts found the back of the net and then added an assist as junior Maggie Morris' goal changed the score to 5-4.
At intermission, the score was 11-8 and Buffalo State never looked back, scoring five straight goals in the second half to increase their lead to 18-10 with 8:53 to play. Sophomore Tara Murphy added two late-game goals for Geneseo, but it was too little, too late.
Fellow sophomore Abby Hungerford also added two goals in the game.
The Lady Knights fell to 5-2 overall and 1-1 in conference play. The team will attempt to get back on track as they take on Utica College on Friday, April 11 at home.