The Oswego State men's lacrosse team suffered its first loss of the 2018 campaign 14-5 at No. 16 Ithaca College on Wednesday afternoon. Ithaca remains unbeaten at 2-0 while the Lakers drop to 1-1 on the year.
A 7-0 run over the first half was all the Bombers needed before Oswego made second-half adjustments. Oswego recorded the first goal of the second stanza as Bobby Emerson registered his third goal of the year from Kyle Bacon. Ithaca tallied three-straight before the Lakers notched their second goal on a man-up situation. Senior Tyler Nason found the back of the net for the first time this season from reigning SUNYAC Rookie of the Year Tim Schof.
Ithaca was able to put four-consecutive scores on the board to extend its lead to 14-2 but Oswego was not discouraged, ending the tilt on a run of its own. The Lakers held the Bombers off the scoreboard for the final 13 minutes of regulation while scoring three goals of their own. It started with Caleb Alford from Alex Sprague-Getsy. Sprague-Getsy went on to record the first goal of his Laker career and Oswego's final of the day off a pass from sophomore classmate Kyle O'Connor.
Sandwiched between that pair of goals was Emerson's second of the game and fourth of the year to make it a 14-4 contest.
O'Connor took each of the 23 faceoffs in the game, winning 13 for a better than 50-percent success rate. The faceoff specialist also paced the team with five ground balls while Kief Manuel was close behind with four. Fellow defenders Mark McElroy and Teddy Phillips led the Lakers with four of the team's 11 caused turnovers, splitting the four evenly with two apiece.
Goalie Kevin O'Donnell was solid in net, finishing with a .600 save percentage on the day. Despite surrendering 14 goals, the freshman made an impressive 21 saves – the most by a Laker in at least the past five seasons.
Oswego will be back on the field at 12 p.m. on Saturday when it travels to Morrisville State College to face the Mustangs.
