Colchester, Vt. (April 29) -- The Saint Anselm men's lacrosse team came up short in an 8-6 loss at No. 4 seeded Saint Michael's on Tuesday afternoon at a blustery Doc Jacobs Field in the Northeast-10 Conference Tournament Quarterfinals. The Hawks rallied from a 6-3 halftime deficit to close within 6-5 in the third quarter, but that was as close as the visitors would get in their second straight Northeast-10 Tournament appearance.

Both teams started slow before the Purple Knights scored 4:09 into the first quarter as Mike Boerma found the back of the net for his 28th goal of the season and a 1-0 lead. Boerma added another goal to make it 2-0, along with a Charlie Niznansky score for the 3-0 advantage with 4:08 left in the opening quarter. That prompted a timeout from Saint Anselm head coach Rick Senatore and the team responded just 26 seconds later as Matt Surette (Wakefield, Mass.) scored on a man-up opportunity to cut the lead down to 3-1. Boerma completed his first-quarter hat trick with 32 seconds left in the period for a 4-1 lead after one quarter of play.

The Hawks came out hot in the second period and a goal from Chris Murphy (Winchester, Mass.) and a man-up goal from Surette cut the lead down to 4-3. Assisting on the Surette goal was senior Steve Trocki (Braintree, Mass.), who reached the 100-point plateau for his career with the assist. Jake Previte and Peter Pikulski got the Purple Knights back on track though in the last eight minutes of the first half and Saint Michael's held a 6-3 advantage at the break.

The second half began slowly before Tim Rist (South Hadley, Mass.) scored his 11th goal of the season with 6:37 left in the period to cut the lead to 6-4. Murphy followed that with his team-leading 33rd goal of the season just 2:11 later to make it a 6-5 game heading into the final 15 minutes.

The only scoring in the fourth quarter came off the stick of Saint Michael's Greg Lazarus, who scored a pair of even-strength goals within less then a minute of each other to make it an 8-6 game with over 12 minutes left on the clock. Saint Anselm outshot the Purple Knights 13-7 in the final quarter, but couldn't claw their way back into the game.

Saint Anselm goalie Dan Flynn (Wakefield, Mass.) played well to cap off his rookie season as he turned aside 10 shots in the loss. Jeff Hannon also made 10 saves as he picked up the victory for the Purple Knights.

Saint Anselm ends the season at 8-7 overall and 6-4 in Northeast-10 play. The six regular-season league victories ties the Saint Anselm single-season mark for conference wins. Saint Michael's advances to the league semifinals to face defending national champion Le Moyne on Friday afternoon in Syracuse, N.Y.

2008-04-30