The University of Mary Washington men's lacrosse team dropped its season opener, 16-10, to visiting Hampden Sydney College on Saturday afternoon at a rainy Battleground. Junior Chris White led the Eagles with four goals and one assist.
The Eagles jumped ahead early with a score from Ben Byrne on a Conor Healy assist with 12:09 left in the first quarter. The Tigers bounced back to score the final three goals of the first, and added another to start the second to take a 4-1 lead. The Eagles responded in the second, with a score from White at 12:12 remaining on an Owen Dingman assist, and again less than a minute later on a White extra man score assisted by Shane McKenzie. Hampden Sydney then scored four straight to take an 8-3 lead to halftime.
Cole Hogan started the scoring in the third quarter with an unassisted tally just 19 seconds into play, but the Tigers answered off the faceoff to push their lead to 9-4. After another HSC score, White scored with 9:50 left on a Dingman assist, and Kieran Burns followed at 4:40 on a White marker, as the Eagles drew to within 9-6. The Tigers scored with 2:22 left in the third, and twice more to start the fourth to push the margin to 13-6.
UMW scores from Robert Tata at 12:11 and from White at 11:48 cut the deficit to 13-8, but again the Tigers answered with three straight to return the Eagles' deficit to eight. UMW scored with 2:59 left on a Cole Hogan score, and once more after controlling the faceoff from Chase Kapuscienski with 2:06 to go. The Eagles couldn't take advantage of a late penalty, and drew a last minute penalty before time expired.
The Tigers led in shots, 43-34, and gained 57 ground balls to 48 for the Eagles. UMW won 16 of 30 faceoffs, and cleared 14 of 17 tries. HSC was sucessful on 19-23 clear attempts. UMW goalkeeper Billy Senicola made 12 saves, while Mitch Renfrow had eight stops for Hampden Sydney.
White led UMW with four goals and one assist, while Hogan scored twice and McKenzie and Dingman each had two assists. The Eagles will return to action on Wednesday when they visit Randolph-Macon College at 4 p.m.