Richmond men's lacrosse wins against UMBC in second game of the season

University of Richmond’s men’s lacrosse team played a strong defensive home game against University of Maryland Baltimore Country Saturday and came out victorious with a 10–5 win.

UMBC won the first face-off and dominated possession until Richmond’s Ryan Lee scored the first goal in the middle of the first quarter, which was one of his three goals. The Spiders kept up the momentum as senior J.P Forester scored within a minute of Lee’s goal.

Mitch Howell scored UMBC’s first goal in the second period, bringing the score to 4–1 Richmond.

After a breakaway, Lee, assisted by defense player Austin Cates, scored Richmond's only goal in the third quarter. UMBC senior Max Maxwell scored the Retriever's only goal in the third quarter with a few minutes left.

The Retrievers kept up the momentum as Billy O'Hara and Billy Nolan scored the first two goals of the fourth period. After Lee's goal, UMBC's Jake Brothers scored unassisted.

Richmond’s Teddy Hatfield and Nash finished the game off, bringing the final score to 10–5.

In the back–and–forth play in the last period, Pugh made four saves, just as many as in the third period. Pugh made ten saves throughout the game.

“I think our goalie Benny Pugh was awesome," Richmond coach Dan Chemotti said. "He had a lot of saves. He was terrific. Ryan Berning and Ryan Dennis I thought played a good game as well."

Berning and Dennis led the defense during the game.

In their home opener last Saturday, the Spiders won a major victory of 15–3 against Fairfield. Chemotti said the team struggled to live up to last week's play.

“I think we may be expected to have a little bit more success early in this game and I think we pressed a little bit and we didn’t have that success based off of last week,” Chemotti said.

Senior Ryan Berning said he agreed.

"I think in last week's game against Fairfield we were really firing on all cylinders," Berning said. "Offense was fantastic putting up 15 goals largely due to Peter Moran’s dominance at the face off. UMBC was able to put up a little bit more of a fight today, but we played a solid team game and were still able to get the win."

The Spider's next game is away on Tuesday against Mount St. Mary's.

"We scored when we needed to and got the job done, but definitely a lot of room for improvement," Berning said. "We have a quick turnaround with a game in three days at Mount St. Mary’s so we’re going to learn from the film and make sure we’re ready to roll come Tuesday."

Contact reporter Alice Millerchip at alice.millerchip@richmond.edu