The Geneseo men’s lacrosse team had its playoff destiny in its own hands, but saw it slip away after losing the final two games of the season to fall to sixth in the SUNYAC conference.
The Knights hosted SUNY Brockport on Wednesday April 24 for the final home game of the season, a team nipping at their heels in the standings and needed a win to cement a spot in the playoffs.
Brockport scored twice in the first eight minutes with goals from seniors Tim Cook and Zach Malecki. Geneseo responded with two of its own to tie the score at 2-2 before the first quarter expired with goals by sophomore Sam Thompson and sophomore Brent Lawless. Thompson recorded two more goals in the match.
The seesaw affair carried into the second quarter, with Cook capitalizing again for the Golden Eagles one minute and 15 seconds in.
Senior John Felix scored the only goal of the third quarter to give the Knights a 4-3 lead. Thompson opened the scoring in the fourth to push the lead to 5-3 with 11 minutes remaining. But in a season marked by ups and downs, the afternoon ended on a down note for Geneseo.
In the final 10 minutes of play, the Golden Eagles’ second leading scorer, junior Riley Austin tied the game with his second of two goals in the quarter. In dramatic fashion, Austin game-tying goal came with one second remaining in regulation.
With 2:02 left in overtime, Brockport took the game in with Cook’s third goal of the day.
The Knights did not have much time to regroup before traveling to SUNY Plattsburgh three days later, where the No. 19 ranked team in the country proved to be too much. Sophomore Zach Yehl opened the scoring for Geneseo in a tightly played first quarter, but that would be the only lead Geneseo would hold.
Plattsburgh scored seven of the next nine goals, along with seven straight in the fourth quarter to end the season for the Knights.
“We know we need to change some things especially offensively,” Thompson said. “We need to score more goals and take the pressure off of our defense who played great all year.”
Next year, the Knights will return 22 of their 30 players and eight of their top ten scorers. “I’m excited to get to work next year and get back to where we need to be as a program,” Thompson said.