Greyhounds upend Tigers 11-7
By: Desmond Boyle, Staff Writer
Towson hosted crosstown rival Loyola in its home opener Wednesday at Johnny Unitas Stadium, but came up short with an 11-7 loss.
Senior midfielder Mike Lynch opened up the scoring just one minute into the game by driving past the heart of the Loyola defense and firing into the upper 90.
Aside from Lynch’s goal — his first of the year — the first quarter featured sloppy play from both teams with constant turnovers and unnecessary penalties.
Loyola managed to take advantage of one of its extra man attacks when sophomore attacker Pat Spencer found Romar Dennis in space to get a clean shot past goalkeeper Josh Miller.
Despite surrendering the goal, Miller managed to make several crucial saves in the first, including a chance in front of the goal on Loyola’s next extra man attack.
Junior midfielder Brian Begley scored the next goal for Loyola with an unassisted effort, and Spencer registered another assist when he found Jordan Germershausen, who scored with 11 seconds left in the opening quarter.
Spencer continued to provide assists in the second quarter. He found junior midfielder Jay Drapeau, and the Greyhounds hit the back of the net.
Lynch eventually found space for Towson at the perimeter and ripped a shot past Loyola’s freshman goalie Jacob Stover.
Despite Lynch’s second goal of the game, Germershausen responded for Loyola to make it 5-2 contest with five minutes left in the first half.
The Greyhounds took a 6-2 lead into the half when Begley ripped a shot inside the post with 4:25 left.
Neither team managed to score early in the second half despite having long stretches of possession.
Following a Loyola goal, senior attacker Ryan Drenner pulled Towson back into the game by scoring for a sixteenth consecutive game.
“In the first half we were just trying to do way too much,” Drenner said. “In the second half we kind of settled down and started to run our offense but we just started too late.”
Drenner scored another goal for Towson to pull within four of Loyola. However, Spencer scored his first goal of the game for Loyola to make it a 9-4 contest with 3:30 left to play in the third.
Zach Goodrich kept the Tigers in the game by putting the ball into the back of the net while falling down close to Stover.
Goldrich’s goal was the final goal of the third and the Tigers trailed by four going into the last 15 minutes of the game.
Senior attacker Tyler Konen scored twice for Towson in the fourth, but Loyola held on for the victory.
“You can’t have guys go 0-15 shooting and only have three of those 15 on cage and expect to have success,” Head Coach Shawn Nadelen said. “They were good shots from good spots and we just didn’t test Stover as much as we could’ve.”
Towson will look to get back in the win column when the team hosts Johns Hopkins at Johnny Unitas Stadium Saturday at noon.