AMHERST — The break the UMass men’s lacrosse team was looking for to grab momentum never came.
The Minutemen spent most of the game chasing No. 7-ranked Towson and could never quite get even and fell 11-8 Saturday at Garber Field.
“It didn’t seem like we had momentum at any time really,” UMass coach Greg Cannella said. “They’re a good team. They struck back on us. We made them earn it today, but they earned it and deserved to win today.”
Tied at halftime, Towson’s Joe Seider scored his third goal of the game 54 seconds into the third quarter to put the visitors up 7-6 and Spencer Parks stretched the Tigers’ edge to 8-6 with 11:25 left in the third. UMass spent the rest of the game playing catchup.
“It felt like that the whole game. We were behind one goal, two goals. Even when it was tied it still felt like we were playing from behind,” Cannella said. “They’re an excellent team. Against the No. 7 team in the country, we were right there, but we didn’t make the plays they did at the end.”
UMass got within a goal early in the fourth quarter, but the Tigers scored the last two goals of the game to pull away.
Towson (10-1, 2-0 CAA) was content to play deliberately on offense, hoarding possession and forcing UMass to spend a lot of the game playing defense.
The long stretches without the ball seemed to fluster the Minutemen offense. When they did gain possession they often rushed shots or hurried passes leading to costly turnovers against a Towson defense that includes All-American goalie Tyler White (eight saves).
“We played a lot of defense the entire game. When you get those possessions you can’t toss them away,” Cannella said. “I thought we did that as an offensive group. We had some short possessions where we turned it over and didn’t take a quality shot. When we were patient we were able to get better opportunities.”
Junior Brendan Hegarty, who had three goals, echoed his coach.
“We could have played a little more together at some points. Guys maybe tried to do a little too much,” Hegarty said. “Playing more together would have helped us today.”
UMass looked sharp out of the gate, taking a 2-0 lead 7 minutes, 3 seconds into the game on goals by Hegarty and Tyler Bogart (two goals, two assists). Towson scored the next four goals to grab momentum and a 4-2 lead after the first quarter.
After the teams traded goals to open the second, UMass scored three of the last four goals before halftime to pull even at 6-6 before the Tigers took control after intermission.
Freshman Sean Sconone made 11 saves for the Minutemen.
The Minutemen, who fell to 4-6 overall and 0-2 in the Colonial Athletic Association, are at Fairfield, Saturday at 1 p.m.
“You hate dropping that game,” Hegarty said. “We have three more big games. We definitely need to get it done next week at Fairfield.”
NOTES – In honor of the 40th anniversary of UMass’ first trip to the NCAA Tournament, the Minutemen honored members of the 1976 team at halftime.
Matt Vautour can be reached at mvautour@gazettenet.com. Get UMass coverage delivered in your Facebook news feed at www.facebook.com/GazetteUMassCoverage