Hofstra men's lacrosse in need of help to make CAA postseason

In the midst of the 15th ranked Hofstra men’s lacrosse team rallying from a 9-6 deficit to achieve a hard fought 14-10 win over Jacksonville Saturday afternoon, an even more dramatic setting in terms of the Pride’s postseason hopes was unfolding three hours away in Suburban Baltimore. In the third quarter Hofstra received some much needed help when Towson held on for a one goal win over Penn  State to momentarily prevent Hofstra’s chances of making the Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Tournament from fading.

Hofstra (8-4, 1-3 in the CAA) put itself in the position of needing help from other teams after suffering an 11-10 overtime loss at Penn State a week ago after holding a 7-2 lead late in the first half. Heading into Saturday Hofstra needed three games to go its way to give the Pride a chance to control its own destiny in the regular season finale against Towson on May 1. Hofstra received some much needed help from Towson Saturday afternoon and the coaches and players will be closely keeping track of the Drexel-Delaware game at 7 p.m. Saturday night hoping that the Dragons can aide the Pride’s postseason chances. The combination of a Drexel win tonight and a Delaware victory at Penn State on Friday would put Hofstra in position where it could clinch a CAA playoff spot by simply beating first place Towson in one week at home.

“We’re going to have our eyes on the computer screen tonight as our fate lies a little bit that way,” said Hofstra men’s lacrosse head coach Seth Tierney following his team’s 14-10 win after trailing 8-5 at halftime. “We bought ourselves four hours.”

“Right now it is out of our control so we’re just working on working hard and playing our game,” said Hofstra junior attackman Jay Card, who registered four goals in the win over Jacksonville.

Despite needing help to qualify for its own conference playoffs Tierney is not ruling out the possibility that Hofstra could still be in the mix for an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament. After the win over Jacksonville, which ended its first season of collegiate lacrosse at 6-7, Hofstra was ranked seventh in the laxpower.com computer rankings. A bracketology analysis conducted by insidelacrosse.com yesterday projected Hofstra would make the NCAA Tournament even without winning the CAA’s automatic bid.

“I’m not ruling out the fact that if Drexel doesn’t win tonight that we may have a shot at an at-large and not be in our conference tournament,” said Tierney, whose team came into the year with high expectations and were ranked as high as sixth just one month ago. “It is one of those years where that could happen.”