After a three-game winning streak, the men’s lacrosse team was defeated by No. 20 Army on March 29 in West Point, N.Y. The team also suffered a loss at the hands of the No. 13/15 Fairfield Stags on April 1 in Fairfield, Conn. Despite some success for several attackmen, such as Thomas Flibotte ’16, Sean Doyle ’16 and Peter Burke ’14, the Orange and Blue now stand at 5-6 overall and 3-3 in the Patriot League.

The Bison started off strong against the Black Knights with early one-goal leads, but the second and third periods were detrimental to the final 11-6 result. Alex Spring ’16 and Flibotte scored on Army’s top-ranked defense within the first 10 minutes to put the Bison up 2-1, and the lead was maintained by Flibotte’s second goal just over two minutes into the second quarter.

However, the Black Knights almost immediately countered the Orange and Blue lead with two quick goals. The score remained tight for the remainder of the second quarter with each team’s capitalization on EMOs, making the score 6-4 with Army leading at halftime.

As the third quarter began, Army was able to outscore the Bison and widen a lead that would remain for the rest of the match. The Black Knight’s success was based majorly off of the domination in the face-off arena. Although the Orange and Blue were able to outshoot Army 35-28, the Black Knights were able to capitalize on 15 of 21 faceoff wins, as well as a 36-23 ground ball advantage.

“We had a hard week of preparation for this game, so the results were not what we had hoped for,” Spring said. 

The team was unable to redeem itself against another ranked opponent a few days later. Although the match against Fairfield remained extremely tight for three quarters of the game, a difficult fourth quarter led the way for a 10-6 Stag victory.

Throughout the majority of the match the score continued to fluctuate with neither team leading by more than one goal within the first 45 minutes of play. Goals by Doyle, Burke, and Brock Ghelfi ’16 kept the Bison consistently on the Stags’ tail, as a third quarter goal by Tom Black ’14 tied the game for the fifth time.

A quick counter-goal by Fairfield at the end of the third quarter solidified a lead that would determine the game’s outcome. The Orange and Blue outshot Fairfield and held a small edge in the collection of ground balls, but were unable to take the victory.

Short-stick midfielder Zach Henkhaus ’16 had three caused turnovers.

“As a team, including myself, we didn’t make the plays we needed to make to finish on a very good Fairfield team,” Henkhaus said.

The Bison look to return to their winning ways tomorrow when they host Mount St. Mary’s at home at 4 p.m.