Geneseo's men's lacrosse team opened up SUNYAC play with a 9-7 win on the road over SUNY Oswego on Saturday.
"We are just looking at winning one at a time and moving forward so getting that first win under our belts is a good thing," head coach Jim Lyons said.
The Knights got off to an early lead as senior Ray Ryan scored his first of three goals just over two minutes into the game. Freshman James Purpura scored later in the quarter to give the Knights a 2-1 lead after one.
Geneseo extended their lead to 7-4 at the half with five goals in the second quarter. Junior Brendan Kurpis and senior Bobby King each scored twice in the frame. Kurpis and King each have 12 goals on the season, one behind Ryan for the team lead.
"When Brendan Kurpis scores goals it means we are getting easy opportunities and its putting pressure on the other team," Lyons said. "Bobby gave us vital goals that gave us a little bit of a cushion going into the third quarter where we weren't necessarily playing our best lacrosse."
Oswego scored the only goal of the third quarter, then two more early in the fourth to tie the game at seven. Ryan then gave Geneseo the lead with 6 minutes, 43 seconds to go and added an insurance goal two minutes later.
"Right now [Ryan] is our most dangerous offensive player," Lyons said. "He's got that senior mentality of I'm not going to be stopped."
Senior Craig Lange, Geneseo's top scorer with 14 assists and 24 points, was held to just one assist during the game.
"They paid a lot of attention to him, they slid to him, and then the ball was out of his stick," Lyons said. "It's like in hockey you see that second assist. He probably had a lot of those where he made a pass and then somebody else made a pass."
Freshman Ryan Zaremba, in goal picked up the win, making 9 saves and allowing just seven goals. For the second consecutive game, the Knights performed well with a man-up, converting two out of three opportunities on the game and improving their percentage to .424 on the season.
"You cannot overstate it," Lyons said. "You have to score your goals when you have an extra player out there."
Geneseo also received offensive contributions from juniors Tim Besio and Jeff Watson. Besio netted his first goal of the season and Watson picked up two assists in the game. Watson is fifth on the team with 11 points on seven goals and four assists.
Geneseo is now 4-4 on the season and 1-0 in SUNYAC play. The Knights continue in the conference Saturday when they go on the road to face SUNY Potsdam.
Ed. Note:
The Knights defeated SUNY Brockport, 12-9 on Wednesday afternoon. Senior Craig Lange led Genseo with three goals and five assists as the team improved to 5-4 overall and 2-0 in SUNYAC play.