The Florida State Seminoles men’s lacrosse team advanced to the National Quarterfinals with a 16-10 victory over #7 Cal Poly. The Seminoles will face #2 BYU on Wednesday at 9 p.m. Eastern.
CollegeLAX.us will continue to provide live coverage of the mcla lacrosse games.
-from FSU Lacrosse:
It was win or go home for the Florida State lacrosse team Tuesday night against California Polytechnic State, and the Seminoles were not about to have their season come to an end. The Tribe and the Mustangs last played each other three years ago in the first round of the National Tournament. In that meeting Cal Poly got the better of the Seminoles and won the game 13-8. FSU got their revenge this year and took the first-round game 16-10 in part by taking the Mustangs out of their own game.
Cal Poly midfielder Matt Rudow is thought of as one of the best at winning faceoffs in the Men’s Colligate Lacrosse Association, but FSU managed to win 12 faceoffs to the Mustangs’ 9. “That was really impressive because their faceoff guy is superb,” FSU assistant coach Matt Waesche said. “That was something that we talked about with our guys—Dave Siegel, Jason Castellanos and Josh Hawes all really stepped up there and helped us. (Cal Poly) won a bunch early in the game and Coach Healey made some adjustments and our guys went out there and executed.”
LSM Jake Hornstein agreed with his coach’s assessment. “That was huge for us. Faceoffs are really important because they help start the offense, and a lot of our guys had a great night with faceoffs.”
The big scorer for the Tribe on the day was attackman Tyler Richey who poured in five goals on the day.
“Richey does a lot of the dirty work for us,” Waesche said. “He does a lot of things that don’t always show up in the stats in terms of goals and assists, but we felt that this was a game that he could help us a lot with scoring. And five goals aren’t too bad in a National Tournament game.”
Richey said of his game, “Coach Harkins talked to me the night before and told me that Cal Poly was weak covering guys sliding to the net. I played a lot of crease attack all year so he told me it was going to be open. I just took advantage of what they gave me.”
FSU won the South Eastern Lacrosse Conference Tournament and finished the regular season 16-2. The Tribe received the No. 10-seed in the National Tournament.
Cal Poly was the winner of the first ever Western Collegiate Lacrosse League Championship, went 12-4 in the regular season and were the seven-seed in the MCLA Tournament.
Both the SELC and WCLL champions did nothing to damage their league’s national reputation with their performance.
“Both teams played aggressively,” Waesche said. “A lot of hard checks and hard fought ground-balls, but still a lot of good transitioning too. It wasn’t just a high-flying game or a grinding game. It was really both.”
FSU held a 5-4 advantage after the first quarter and stretched that lead to 9-5 at halftime. The Mustangs were able to get back within two goals of the ’Noles, but in the end FSU’s balanced scoring attack was too much for the WCLL champs.
The Seminoles had several players besides Richey contribute offensively. Attackman Tom Byrne had three goals and two assists. Fellow attackman Corey Noonan and midfielders Robert Lee and Alex Pettit all had two goals apiece. Midfielder Dave Siegel had two goals to go along with his work taking faceoffs for the team.
“That is the way we usually are,” Hornstein said. “We always have a bunch of different people score, and I really think that is how we play when we are successful.”
Goalie John Goodrich also had 12 saves to help preserve the six-goal victory.
FSU will next play BYU today (Wednesday) at 9 p.m. EST. BYU is the No. 2-seed in the MCLA Tournament and finished the regular season with a 17-3 record. The Seminoles are well known as a high-tempo run-and-gun offensive team, while BYU is more of a ball-control team.
“BYU is much more of a posession team,” Richey said. “They are going to hold the ball and move it around and try and use some time before they shoot. We don’t really waste a lot of time before we try and score. I think the real difference is going to be if our defense can keep up with their passes to disrupt them, and if we do that we should be fine.”
