Wildcats take down Hofstra, 11-5

Juli Walsh

The Men’s Lacrosse Team improved to 2-0 in the CAA and 6-3 overall when they defeated Hofstra 11-5 last Friday.

“Our defense played great and kept us in the game in the first half until the offense came back in the third quarter and scored seven straight goals and 10 goals in the second half.  It was another team victory with some outstanding individual efforts by Chris Colinates, Joe Canuso and the mid-fielders,” Dan Fanelli, who scored two goals in Friday’s game, said.

Junior midfielder Matt Starker led the Wildcat offense with four goals.

“It was a complete team effort from our goalie all the way to the attack,” Starker said. “I was just fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of some excellentn plays.”

Eric Heidenberger, Dan Fanelli and Chris MacDonald also each added two goals to lead the Villanova Wildcats to the win.

Meanwhile, Hofstra was led by Chris Unterstein with two goals.

The opening quarter of the game was an exchange of goals between the teams.

In the second quarter leading scorer John Keysor and Athan Ianucci tallied a goal a piece. Hofstra led 3-1 at the half, but not for long.

“Our win aganst Hofstra was a big one,” goalie Joe Canuso said. “We fought hard the whole game the first half was a defensive battle while our offense was having trouble scoring, the second half the offense scored a lot of goals for us and got us the win.”

Canuso made 17 saves during the game.

The Wildcats came out strong in the second half. They fired 17 shots at freshman goalie James Tuophy in the period. He saved six shots, but the Wildcats were able to find the back of the net 10 times total that period. Seven of the 10 goals were in a row.

In the third quarter the Wildcats showed the Pride they were not walking out of there without a fight. Heidenberger, MacDonald and Starker all had unanswered goals in this quarter. Starker made the shot that took the lead with 6:16 left in the period. Less than three minutes, later a junior midfielder scored for Hofstra to tie the game 4-4.

Villanova came out even stronger during the fourth quarter. They went on a 7-0 run to secure the win. Starker scored three of these seven goals and Heidenberger pitched in his two.

“It felt like it was the first time that we were fully playing to our potential as a team.  We capitalized on our opportunities with great shots on goal.  It says a lot about our team coming from a 3-1 deficit at halftime to go on a 7-0 run on the 11th ranked team in the nation,” Heidenberger said.

Unterstein finished the scoring with 1:13 in the game.

“The team is starting to come together like we knew we could.  We are looking forward to the next couple games because they will all be tough battles against league opponents,” added Canuso.

The team will take on Towson Saturday at 7 p.m. in Villanova Stadium.