Men's lacrosse season continues to worsen
John Bauer
The Silhouette
A season that started with much promise has quickly turned into a nightmare for McMaster's men's lacrosse team after dropping another pair of games. While the losses did come at the hands of the conference leading Brock, the Maroon have not won a game since Sept. 15. An anemic offense continues to plague the team, after they only scored five goals between the two games.
The first game did not start out too badly for McMaster, as the Badgers took a 2-0 lead midway through the first quarter, before Mac's leading scorer Mark Phillips, cut the lead to one. Undisciplined play by the Marauders in the second led to two power play goals against them with an even-strength tally in between to put the Maroon and Grey down 5-1.
While McMaster's defense was strong enough to hold the potent Brock offense to three goals in the second half, their offense was nowhere to be found, despite several power plays in the fourth quarter. The lone goal in the first quarter was all of Mac's offense for the day, and led to an 8-1 loss. Overall, Mac only took eight shots at Badgers goalie Ian Duffy.
The Marauders had three days and a trip to Brock to rethink their strategy. While the style of the teams' second encounter of the week was markedly different, the result was much the same for McMaster
The Marauders entered the game with a decidedly more offensive approach than the first. Brock was more than willing to engage in the run and gun offense however, and quickly built a 5-0 lead in the first quarter. Mac would trade tallies with Brock in the second quarter to work the score to 8-3. Scoring for McMaster was Phillips with his twelfth of the season, who had help from his usual setup men Mitchell Iskzkula and Derrick Hastings.
Similar to the first game, the second half of the contest was all Brock. The balanced Badger attack pumped seven more goals behind the McMaster defense before Phillips scored late for a 15-4 final. McMaster almost matched Brock in shots, but the Brock defense severely limited the quality of McMaster's scoring opportunities.
McMaster looks to right the ship this coming week with a single game against the Toronto Varsity Blues on Oct. 11 at Alumni Field. A win for McMaster would move them even with Toronto in the standings at 6 points, though Mac has a game in hand.
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