The Brockport Men’s lacrosse team fell to the Nazareth Golden Flyers 21-8 on the road for a midweek matchup. Nazareth started things hot, scoring four goals in the first five minutes. Brockport was able to score each quarter, but 23 total turnovers ultimately led to their demise.
Despite the large margin two Golden Eagles still put up big offensive numbers. Nick Askin continued his streak of at least four goals per game, netting four and one assist in the loss. His assist was to Jackson Worden who matched his career-high with three goals, including Brockport’s first of the game. Jack Acker made 12 saves in 52 minutes before Gavin Miller came in for the final eight minutes. The freshman totaled five saves.
Nazareth got out to a hot start thanks to three consecutive wins at the faceoff dot. Jakob Denkenberger cleanly beat Drew DiPalma on his first three attempts. On the first draw of the game Denkenberger was able to take the ball to the Brockport crease and score. Only nine seconds into the game, the Golden Flyers had all the momentum in the world and turned it into three more goals.
It took a timeout from Brockport head coach Colin Cornaire to stop the run. Out of the timeout, DiPalma appeared to be born again as he cleanly won the faceoff. He won out the remainder of the quarter with three more draw wins. DiPalma and Denkenberger work out together in the offseason. From that moment on it was a dogfight that ultimately ended 17-13 in Nazareth’s favor.
“Sometimes it just takes a bit to adjust to the whistle,” DiPalma said. “All refs are different, all cadences are different so once I warmed up to it I kind of did a little better.
Just as quickly as Brockport stopped the Nazareth run, they started a longer one. The Golden Flyers quick passes to the inside or passes to a wide-open shooter on the back door beat Brockport time and again.
Nick Askin stopped the second quarter run with his signature left-handed finish from the goal line extended but the next one was one that may have been the greatest in Brockport men’s lacrosse history.
Askin drove down the left wing and worked his defender onto his left shoulder. He tried to drive to the crease but met the slide of two extra defensemen and he was stuck with one hand on his stick in the middle of a triple team. From nowhere, he cranked his stick like a windmill and sent the ball into the back of the net.
“I thought he had my glove, so my main goal was to catch it,” Askin said. “Once I caught it, it was either shoot it and get killed or just get killed so I figured try and shoot it and luckily for me, I was able to twist it a little bit and the goalie couldn’t read it and it went in the net. Definitely a nice goal to add to the highlight tape.”
Brockport went into the half down 12-4 and the deficit only grew from there. Despite a near-even battle at the faceoff dot, miscued passes and poor mental mistakes led to 23 total turnovers. That kept Brockport out of the offensive zone for too long for the game to be competitive. 21-8 is the largest loss margin of the year for the Golden Eagles. Brockport now heads into a break with no Saturday matchup this week. The Golden Eagles’ next game is March 19 against Chatham.
“We just need to come and have good energy and be willing to win and want to win,” Askin said. “Energy was low even before the game and it showed and carried on throughout the quarters. We gotta want it and luckily we have a good week off and we can take that forward.”
