According to Hiram Terriers men’s lacrosse Coach Jason Griffith, his squad wanted to make an impression in its first North Coast Athletic Conference game of the season. But things did not go as planned as Hiram was dominated by conference foe Oberlin 19-2 at Hiram College’s Charles A. Henry Field at Malsimur Stadium last Wednesday evening.
“They were able to pick on a couple of freshmen,” said the first-year coach. “They were put in a spot because of our numbers. Jacob Starcke and Solomon Brennan are really good shooters, so it was tough. Their face-off play was much better than expected so that was unfortunate.”
After starting the season with a 3-1 record, the Terriers (4-4, 0-1) have hit a rough stretch, having lost their last three games. Hiram is already in a difficult position by fielding one of the smallest rosters in the NCAC, but their struggles have been made worse by dealing with injuries and illnesses in the past few games.
With only 19 players on the rosters, five are unavailable to play, leaving the Terriers short-handed.
“That is tough,” acknowledged Griffith. “I love the effort and the passion that the Hiram kids display every single day at practice and during the game. The effort is not lacking and the willingness to do the extra work is not lacking but when you have a smaller roster, the injuries magnify.”
On Wednesday night, the Terriers fell behind quickly in the first period as Oberlin outscored them by a 6-0 margin.
Senior attacker Jacob Starcke ignited the Yeomen’s offense, scoring four goals to push Oberlin to a big lead.
“It was on the scouting report,” said Griffith. “Starcke is a really good shooter and you have to close him out and get at his hands to make contested shots and we were not able to do a good job of that so he was able to make us pay.”
The Terriers continued to struggle to defend against Starcke in the second quarter as he added two more goals and assisted on another and Oberlin increased its lead to 12-0 at the half.
In addition to Starcke’s offensive eruption, the Terriers also struggled at the face-off as freshman midfielder William Luketich struggled against Oberlin freshman midfielder Trevor Flynn and senior midfielder John McDonnell, only winning seven of 23.
“Bill has done very well at the face-off for us and this is the first time I have seen someone get the better of him,” noted Griffith. “Flynn used his size and used his leverage to his advantage and Bill tried several different moves on him and did not seem to be able to generate any sort of momentum so a tip of the hat to the Oberlin kid.”
The Yeomen continued dominating in the third period, adding four more goals to push their lead to 16-0 and kept their momentum in the fourth quarter by scoring another goal to increase its advantage to 17-0 before Hiram snapped its scoreless drought when senior midfielder/attacker Brett Johnson scored an unassisted goal with 6:58 remaining in regulation.
As deflating as the loss against Oberlin was, Griffith said he wanted to keep things in perspective for his squad. Having been appointed as the head coach about a month before the season started, he acknowledged that he knew the Terriers were going to have to endure a lot of growing pains.
In addition to having a small team, Hiram is also a young team with only five upperclassmen on the roster and two freshmen playing on the defensive line and two freshmen playing at the midfielder’s position.
Griffith said it was one thing to have several underclassmen on his roster when he was a high school lacrosse coach, but having a large group of freshmen and sophomores on his roster at the collegiate level is a different type of challenge.
“The IQ and game experience really matters at the college level because the game moves faster,” he said. “Even if you have freshmen who are capable, and they have got the talent, stickwork and the leg ability, if their game IQ is not quite where it should be then the mistakes will compound, and you take your lumps.”
With a young and small roster, Griffith said that Hiram’s path is made even tougher be belonging to a conference that holds a few of the top 30 collegiate lacrosse programs in the country such as Kenyon College, Ohio Wesleyan University and Dennison University.
“They are very talented programs and well-established and it is my goal to get Hiram to a point where we are competing with them and we have rosters that are just as deep and talented as they do,” he added.
The Terriers will hit the road and take on NCAC foe DePauw in Greencastle, IN on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m.
