The men’s lacrosse team began its season on Sunday with a pair of odd victories.
In both of its games against the University of Findlay and Eastern Michigan University, the Cardinals won by way of a forfeit.
The two wins mean the Cards are 2-0 to start the year and 2-0 in conference play.
Vanguard photo | Cody Shrader
The men’s lacrosse team went against the University of Findlay and Eastern Michigan on Saturday. The Cardinals won both contests despite not finishing a single game as both opponents forfeited.
The game against Findlay was forfeited by the Findlay’s Oilers after only nine of their players showed up to the game. Despite this, both teams were willing to scrimmage each other with nine players. The Cards won the scrimmage 19-1.
SVSU goalie Nick Ruby said the offense found its groove early on against the Oilers.
“Our offense put up some good numbers,” he said. “They just got in the zone in the first quarter and threw up a lot of goals, and then just settled back and tried to waste time. We were able to walk away with the win.”
The game against Eastern Michigan began like any other game, but ended differently.
Going into the third quarter down 13-3, the Eagles decided to forfeit the game and did not offer an explanation.
Ruby said the Cardinals were hoping to keep playing, but the Eagles refused to do so.
“It was a weird way to start the season,” he said. “They didn’t really give us much of an explanation. They just told the refs that they were done, and we were upset because we wanted to keep playing.”
Ruby added that the offense dominated each game, but the defense made the most of its opportunities, too.
“Our offense just kept the ball moving and put the ball in the back of the net,” he said. “The defense did a great job. Whenever the ball did come down to our end of the field, they really stepped up and got the ball back and out of our zone really quickly.”
As for the rest of the season, Ruby says that the victories just raise high expectations even higher.
“We have high expectations going into the season, especially coming off of these two wins,” he said. “We have two more conference games coming up this weekend and they’re going to be against much better teams.
“We expect a lot from them, but we know that if we keep pushing through this week and get a couple of solid practices in then we should be doing pretty well.”
Ruby added that the team played well, but can play even better.
“We’re not quite where we want to be yet,” he said. “Yesterday was really only the second day that we’ve played on a full field, so we still have a little more work to do.”
The Cardinals will play their next their next two games against conference foes Ball State and Cleveland State. The games will be at 4:30 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. Saturday, March 29.