In their final year in the North Coast Athletic Conference, the Hiram Terriers men’s lacrosse team has played against the three top teams and each result has been the same. The Terriers’ struggles in the NCAC continued as they were defeated by Kenyon College 29-2 last Saturday afternoon at Malsimur Stadium’s Charles A. Henry Field at Hiram.
“Credit to the boys for putting that effort for 60 minutes,” said Coach Jason Griffith. “We had two more injuries on Wednesday and another guy was injured and missed a quarter-and-a-half on Saturday, so having to go to battle with 14 players is tough.”
It marked the 43rd consecutive loss for the Terriers (3-9, 0-3) in conference play, as they have not won a NCAC match since the 2018 campaign when they defeated conference foe Wabash 17-16. According to the second-year coach, one of his squad’s biggest goals is to finish the season by finally snapping their winless drought in conference play,
So far, Hiram is still searching for that elusive victory after its first three NCAC matches have been against the reigning conference powerhouses, Ohio Wesleyan University, Dennison University and Kenyon College. In those three matches, the Terriers have been outscored by an 81-5 margin.
On Saturday, the Terriers fell into a deep hole as Kenyon erupted to score 11 goals in a span of 7:01 in the first quarter.
The Owls controlled every possession by winning all 15 face-offs and used crisp ball movement to relentlessly score goals. Freshman face-off specialist Jack Levitt controlled the opening ball drop and won 11 of 11 face-offs.
“Kenyon’s face-off guy is probably one of the top five if not the best in the country,” Griffith added. “It really hurt not having Bricen Jones today. He would have least mucked it up and made some 50/50 groundballs for us.”
Kenyon junior attacker David Cintala paced his squad by scoring four goals and four different players each tallied at least one goal in the scoring spree to take control of the match.
The Owls added three more goals in the final few minutes, increasing their advantage to 14-0 and continued rolling in the second quarter by scoring eight more goals to take a commanding 22-0 edge into the half.
Although the Terriers finally scored in the third period when freshman midfielder Jack Cook rifled in a shot from long range off an assist from senior attacker Trevor Norstrom with 12:34 remaining in the period and senior midfielder Aaron Gardner deposited a shot into the net off a feed from Cook at the 2:28 mark, Hiram could not make any sort of dent in the Owls’ lead and still trailed by a 23-2 margin.
After beginning the season with a variety of injuries, the Terriers’ health woes continued in the second half of the season as several players suffered injuries at the start of NCAC play.
“We lost two after Ohio Wesleyan University and one of those was a guy trying to come back and he just was not ready and he was further injured,” noted Griffith. “Against Dennison, we made out okay, but I think the wear and tear showed on Wednesday when we lost two more.”
When it was all said and done, the Terriers were without two defensive midfielders, one midfielder and one attacker, leaving them with only 14 players.
Griffith acknowledged how challenging it was for his team to be so short-handed at this stage of the season.
“It is very frustrating,” he said. “We managed to get through last year. I inherited a roster of 18 and lost two in the first week but we made it through the rest of the way with just 16. We started this year with 24 players and on Saturday we had to go to battle with 14 guys.”
The good news for Hiram is that it has finished competing against the top tier of the NCAC and Griffith said that his squad should play more competitive matches against the rest of the league in the home stretch. He added that the team remains motivated to capture a few league victories before they conclude their time in the NCAC and join the Presidents’ Athletic Conference next year, where there is much more parity.
“Provided we get healthy, we should have a good shot at making games competitive against DePauw, Wittenberg and Wabash,” he said.
Following a road contest against the College of Wooster on Wednesday evening, Hiram will return home and welcome DePauw University to Malmisur Stadium’s Charles A. Henry Field on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m.
