Furious Comeback Not Enough For U-M Lacrosse

ANN ARBOR - In the brief history of Michigan's men's lacrosse program - this season is just the fifth at the varsity level - the Maize and Blue have spent just a few weeks with a record greater than .500. Another opportunity to reach that mark passed Saturday with a 13-12 loss to Dartmouth.

Throughout large stretches of the game, it looked like the Big Green would be able to take the margin out of reach for the Wolverines. After U-M got on the scoreboard first, Dartmouth closed the opening quarter with five straight goals to open a lead that was reduced to a single point, but that they never fully relinquished.

Turnovers and execution errors - especially to open the game - did the Wolverines in.

“We’re really tinkering right now with our offensive personnel," said U-M head coach John Paul. "Even in the games that we’ve been really successful offensively, where our efficiency is high and we’re scoring lots of goals, we haven’t felt like we're really running our offense. I think that’s what you were seeing, especially early, is that we’re still not quite sharp enough offensively. We’re not running the things we need to run the way we need to run them to be successful.”

Despite the early run by Dartmouth, the Wolverines were able to pull back within a single goal just moments into the second half, when junior attackman Ian King recorded the second of his three assists (he would also add a goal for a four-point outing), bringing the score to 7-6 on a Decker Curran tally.

Again the Big Green would respond, however, notching seven of the game's next nine goals to take a 13-7 lead with less than nine minutes remaining in the contest.

The Maize and Blue knew how to respond, though. Facing a similar situation against Dartmouth's Ivy League brethren Pennsylvania earlier this spring, Michigan trailed 12-6 with the same amount of time remaining. Time ran out on a Wolverine comeback in Philadelphia, and the same happened in Ann Arbor, with a last-ditch effort to tie the game with 26 seconds remaining on the clock resulting in a turnover and the Big Green running out the clock.

Nonetheless, it's an experience to build on.

“I think it’s really important for the sidelines to keep it up," freshman midfielder Justin Gibbons said of team energy. "It just gets the players on the field more motivated, and gives them more confidence. We just know that when we’re in those situations – it’s similar to the Penn game – when we’re in those situations, we have to get it to our best players.”

“I think this team has belief that we can come back," added Paul. "We were winning faceoffs and we had a similar situation when we fell behind in the third quarter against Penn. We came back in that one and felt like we ran out of time. More important for us is learning how not to get in that position in the first place.”

Though he was responsible for the turnover on the game's final offensive possession, senior midfielder Kyle Jackson otherwise had an outstanding game for the Wolverines. He scored three goals and assisted on two more for a game-high five total points. King, who left the game injured in the fourth quarter, was joined by senior attackman Peter Kraus (three goals, one assist) in the four-point club.

“I think it was just a true team effort," Kraus said. "Swinging the ball through X. It’s definitely nice when the offense is geared toward me, but good offense, we know how to play.”

Goalie Gerald Logan had an uncharacteristically poor performance, stopping just nine shots while allowing 13 goals. However, he improved over the course of the game (seven goals and seven saves in the second half, compared to two saves and six goals against before the half).

Faceoff specialist Brad Lott was one of the bright spots for U-M, winning nearly two-thirds of faceoffs (19/29, .655), helping the Wolverines to a significant possession advantage. Despite that advantage, the Maize and Blue had trouble keeping the Big Green from firing off shots.

"Brad has completely separated himself [from our other specialists]," Paul said. "We were pretty confident that we could have success today with their guy, and the style that he plays. He’s a really good athlete, he really scraps, and he really gets after ground balls, but we felt like we could control the draw. We did, and we especially did in crunch time, and that I was really happy to see.

"This is a bizarre statline," he continued, speaking of the possession game. "Clears are even, we dominated faceoffs, we won groundballs, and yet they outshot us almost two-to-one.”

The Wolverines return to Michigan Stadium Wednesday evening for their final non-conference tilt against the Marist Red Foxes. They're looking to get back onto the right foot.

“We’ve got a midweek game on Wednesday against Marist," said Kraus. "That’s definitely a team we can beat. It’s our last non-Big Ten game. Definitely want to get a W, then we’ve got that weekend off, so we’ve got time to get up the intensity.”