Underclassmen accounted for seven of the Redhawks 11 goals with Hilton native and freshman Mike Richardson scoring twice and adding an assist, but Roberts fell to NYIT 14-11 in men’s lacrosse.
The Bears jumped out to a 3-0 lead, but Roberts scored four of the next five to tie the game 4-4 early in the second quarter.
Freshman AJ Hemms drove down the left and scored at 7:39 and, before the first stanza was over, tallied twice more in just 15 seconds. Adam Doviak caused a turnover at midfield before Zac Sapor found Brady Martin for the first score. Senior Jordan Crusha then charged to net after a faceoff win to make it a one-goal deficit at the end of the first.
With the Redhawks a man-up to start the second, Cody Menzies tied the game off a pass from senior Alex Bianchi just 13 seconds into the quarter.
But NYIT rattled off four unanswered goals to take an 8-4 lead. Bianchi stemmed the rally with a long distance goal with an assist from Menzies and, two minutes later, Richardson found the net after a spin move away from the defender to close the gap to 8-6.
NYIT again pulled away with three goals to end the first half and added another to open the second half for a 12-6 advantage.
The Redhawks tried to rally scoring four of the next five goals started by a rip from Sapor at 11:27 of the third, Menzies finding twine from Bianchi at 10:11, Martin scoring a man-down goal from Sapor at 5:30 and Bianchi scoring his second – a man-up tally with an assist from Richardson at 4:10 to bring the Redhawks to within 13-10.
But they only managed one goal in the final quarter – Richardson netting his second off a spin move at 7:29.
“We ran out of steam and they’re a good team – they’re the number one ranked team in the ECC (East Coast Conference),” head coach Rocky Delfino said. “Last year they beat us like 24-3, so we played hard, but we got into penalty trouble, but I’m proud of the guys that they played hard and didn’t give up.”
The Redhawks, at 4-3, are off the second best start in program history.
“Positive signs and recruiting is helping, but it takes a while,” Delfino said. “I’m happy where we are at and hopefully we can start winning a couple of these games – we have to beat one of our top conference teams to turn it around.”
Roberts’ senior goalkeeper, Keith Keehn, was credited with 15 saves.
