Reggie Thompson
The Paw Print
The Adams State men’s lacrosse home-opener was ruined by junior attackman Reed Upson’s game and the Dominican University of California Penguins and their strong offensive effort on Sunday, as the Grizzlies fell 13-6 in their sixth straight loss of the season.
It was rough goings early on for Adams State, as Dominican University opened the game with a goal by redshirt freshman midfielder Dalton Copeland 46 seconds into the game. From there, the Penguins ended the first period with a 4-0 lead, credited to a goal by sophomore midfielder Jim Little and two scored by Upson.
The Penguins scored three additional goals in the first four minutes of the second, starting with Upson’s third goal of the game 43 seconds into the quarter.
Freshman midfielder Chanson Miller ended the Penguins 7-0 run with the Grizzlies’ first goal with the assist by freshman attackman Chris Cunningham. Just a minute later, Dominican regained their offensive habits with Upson’s fourth of his five goals in the game.
The first half concluded with a 9-2 score in favor of DUC. The Penguins were much more aggressive offensively and defensively in this half as they attempted 22 shots compared to the eight shots the Grizzlies took.
The second half would prove to be more productive for Adams. Eleven seconds into the third period, midfielder Anthony Willner’s winning faceoff assisted Peter Santamaria’s second goal of the season. Santamaria would return 2 minutes, 44 seconds later to score his third of the season. With the score 9-4, the Grizzlies were unable to reduce the Penguin’s lead any more.
At minute 10:21 in the third quarter, Copeland came back with his second goal of the game and 21st of the season to increase their total to 10. After about eight minutes, Kevin Bertrand, a sophomore attackman for the Grizzlies, scored his eighth goal of the season, making the score 10-5 with 2:02 remaining in the quarter. The third quarter would conclude in an impressive fashion as Penguin senior midfielder Emmett Faricy put his team up 11-5 with just three seconds left. Brock Beall then scored a man-up goal to begin the fourth quarter and assisted on a later tally by Matt Polizzi to earn the team its thirteenth goal of the game, which would be their total.
Prior to Polizzi’s goal, the Grizzlies’ freshman defender Jordan Stillwagon marked the first goal of his Adams State career to increase ASC’s total to 6 for the game.
DUC freshman goalie Sean Donohue accounted for seven saves for the Penguins, six of which came in the second half.
The Grizzlies play their next three games at home on Friday, April 8 against the club teams of Lindenwood (Mo.) at 7 p.m., Grand Canyon (Ariz.) on Sunday, April 10 at 1 p.m., and Notre Dame de Nammur (Calif.) on April 15.
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