LEXINGTON, Va. – Opening the 2016 home slate with a Southern Conference opponent, the VMI lacrosse team fell to visiting Richmond by an 11-6 score Saturday night at Drill Field 2 in Lexington, Virginia.
Although both teams earned nearly the same amount of groundballs and had an almost equivalent faceoff victory ratio (10 for VMI, 9 for Richmond), the Spiders (4-1, 1-0) took advantage of offensive opportunities and outshot the Keydets (1-4, 0-1) by a 42-17 margin. Both teams were competitive in clearing opportunities as Richmond converted on 16 of 17 attempts while VMI was successful on 15 of 17.
“Tonight was another good 60-minute fight,” said VMI head coach Jon Birsner. “I'm proud of the way we competed. We took a step back in that department earlier in the week so it was great to bounce back. We need to clean up a lot of our mistakes but the good thing is that they are fixable and we'll learn from them.
“We've been focusing a lot on faceoffs so it was good to see us do well in that area. My assistants continue to adjust and are putting guys in the right places. Pat Hine fought his heart out there and got great support from his wings.”
Although the Keydets struck first on freshman John O'Donnell's goal five minutes into the game, Richmond jumped out to a 3-1 lead to end the quarter with goals from Mitch Goldberg, Austin Brown and Dan Ginestro.
Ginestro would score again early in the second period, but two goals from VMI's Cody Sheetz near the end of the quarter cut the Spider lead to 4-2 to give the Keydets some momentum going into the half.
Richmond rose to the challenge, however, and managed to outscore the Keydets by a 5-2 margin in the third quarter to pull ahead 9-5 with one quarter remaining. Sophomore Wesley Sanders scored his two goals of the game during the stanza.
“Wes is continuing to grow each game. He's learning a new position, so it was great to see him get two assists with his two goals tonight to show his potential for growth.”
Down 9-5 with 15 minutes left, VMI opened the fourth quarter with excitement as Richmond's Peter Moran was given a three-minute penalty for illegal equipment at the faceoff. The Keydets were unable to take advantage of the man-up opportunity, however, as both teams held firm to a 9-5 score until 4:34 left in the game when the Spiders added another goal.
Pat Hine scored his first goal of the season shortly after to trim the Richmond advantage to 10-6, but VMI's late rally fell short to allow Richmond the conference win.
The Keydets return to non-conference action Tuesday afternoon with a 4 p.m. matchup on Drill Field 2 with Wagner College.
