The Geneseo men's lacrosse team suffered its first SUNYAC defeat of the season on Saturday, falling to SUNY Potsdam 9-8.
Geneseo and Potsdam traded one-goal leads in the first quarter and Potsdam ended the frame with a 3-2 lead. Junior Brendan Kurpis and senior Kevin Centore scored for the Knights in the period.
Kurpis scored two additional goals in the second quarter as the Knights went into halftime tied at four. Kurpis scored five goals on the game and extended his team lead to 21 goals on the season.
"We are relying on [Kurpis] for offense, there's no question about it," head coach Jim Lyons said. "When you score eight goals and one player scores five of them, you're not a very balanced scoring attack. We needed to find offense someplace else and we couldn't do it."
Kurpis scored again early in the third quarter, but Potsdam responded with four consecutive goals that gave the Bears an 8-5 lead. Potsdam outscored Geneseo 3-1 in the third quarter; Geneseo committed ten turnovers in the period.
"The turnovers led to more possession time for [the Bears]," Lyons said. "We needed to value the ball a little bit more and we didn't do a very good job of that."
Down 8-5 in the fourth quarter, the Knights scored three straight goals in less than two minutes to tie the game at eight with five minutes remaining. Kurpis scored the first of the three goals on an assist that marked the 100th of senior Craig Lange's career. Junior Jeff Watson scored another to pull the Knights within one and freshman John Wettack notched the game's tying goal.
With just 44 seconds left in the game, Potsdam scored the game-winning goal.
"We had the ball with a chance to win and we didn't do it and they got it done. Ultimately I give all the credit to Potsdam," Lyons said. "It's difficult to handle and it's disappointing."
Freshman Ryan Zaremba took the loss in goal, allowing nine goals and making eight saves. The Knights struggled on the man-down, allowing four goals in six chances to Potsdam.
"Overall we'd like to be a little more aggressive and I don't think we were," Lyons said. "We didn't communicate well enough what we wanted to accomplish. Everybody wasn't always on the same page. We just didn't have a good day."
Geneseo falls to 5-5 on the season and 2-1 in SUNYAC. The team hopes to have a more balanced attack in the team's last three games.
"For us to get some other people going we need them to attack the cage a little bit harder," Lyons said. "We need to be more explosive and we need to take a little pressure off of both sides of the ball."
The Knights are in action again on Saturday when they continue SUNYAC play on the road against SUNY Plattsburgh.