LEWISTON, MAINE – The Cortland men's lacrosse team fell behind by six goals early in the first quarter and couldn't mount a comeback, as the Red Dragons saw their season come to an end with a 17-9 loss at nationally 15th-ranked Bates in the second round of the NCAA Div. III playoffs on Friday evening in Lewiston, Maine.
Cortland finishes the season at 15-6, while Bates improves to 12-5 and advances to face the winner of the other second round matchup between Hope and Ithaca on Saturday afternoon.
Stefan Swedlund (Randolph, NJ) led Cortland with four goals and an assist, finishing the year with 68 goals, and also surpassing 100 career points in the game.
Drew Williamee (Canandaigua/Canandaigua Academy) had two goals and an assist, while
Nick Stoecker (East Setauket/Ward Melville) added a goal and two assists and
Frank Neeson (Orchard Park) provided two assists.
James Sullivan (Rockville Centre/South Side) scooped up eight ground balls and had one caused turnover,
Conor Cosgrove (Warwick/Don Bosco Prep, NJ) scooped up three ground balls.
Josh Goldbach had two goals and four assists for Bates, and Connor Hartman scored four goals for the Bobcats. Miles Schmidt won 15-of-17 faceoffs and picked up seven ground balls in the win.
Bates scored the opening six goals of the game, and led 7-2 after the opening quarter. The Bobcats won the first five faceoffs of the game and scored on their first five offensive possessions before the Red Dragons even had a chance to possess the ball. After falling behind by six goals with 6:50 remaining in the period, Swedlund got the Red Dragons on the board with a goal from the right side of the goal after an assist from Stoecker. Following Bates' seventh goal of the period with under two minutes remaining, Swedlund netted his second goal of the frame off an assist from
James Violi (East Islip) with just 14 seconds left in the period.
Stoecker pulled the Red Dragons back to within four with his 61st goal of the season only a minute into the second quarter. The teams then traded goals over the following minutes, with a Bates goal by Goldbach canceled out by a goal for Cortland by
Caden Morra (Farmingdale/Plainedge), and then Henry McCann's goal for the Bobcats was answered by a man-up goal from Williamee with 6:42 left in the half and Bates leading 9-5.
The Bobcats scored the final four goals of the half to lead 13-5 at halftime, and the lead was at least eight for the remainder of the game. In the third quarter, Bates scored four times, and the Red Dragons netted two goals on tallies by Williamee and
Gannon Houghton (Morrisville/Cazenovia), for its largest lead of the game at 10 goals at 17-7 after three quarters.
The Red Dragons held the Bobcats scoreless in the fourth quarter, with Cortland goalkeeper
Charlie Falowski (Redding, CT/Joel Barlow) making two saves in the final period. Falowski finished with nine saves for the game, with seven of those saves coming in the second half. Cortland also netted two goals in the final stanza, both by Swedlund in the span of only 40 seconds midway through the period, but the Red Dragons were not able to pull any closer over the final minutes for the 17-9 defeat.
