After a crushing 11-10 overtime loss at Penn State on April 17 the Hofstra men's lacrosse team' lost control of its own destiny to try and reach the NCAA Tournament but thanks to some key results that went their way the Pride has a second life to make 2010 a special season. Despite not making the Colonial Athletic Association post season Hofstra (9-4) received an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament on Sunday night and will travel to third seeded Maryland on Saturday afternoon at Noon in hopes of reaching its first quarterfinals since 2006.
While Hofstra will have a tall order facing Maryland (11-3) head coach Seth Tierney is just happy that his team gets a fresh start to what has been a season of ups and downs. "Everybody is 0 and 0 now," said Tierney, who has led Hofstra to three NCAA Tournament appearances in a row. "We're cutting the regular season lose."
The last time Hofstra faced Maryland was 10 years ago in the first round of the NCAA Tournament at UMBC with the Pride falling 14-12. This was ironically Tierney's last game as an assistant coach at Hofstra before taking a job at Johns Hopkins, where he would last the next six years before returning to Hempstead as head coach in 2007.
Last week when Hofstra was unsure if their season was over yet or not Tierney kept his players focused by holding three intra-squad scrimmages. Tierney said he is expecting his players to be facing a very physical Maryland team on Saturday. "They are going to be in our gloves and in our uniforms as soon as we get off the bus," said Tierney. "We're going to have to match the intensity."
No comments:
Post a Comment