Box Score CANTON, N.Y.—The Skidmore College men's lacrosse team lost 9-6 to 20^th ranked St. Lawrence University in its Liberty League opener, Saturday afternoon.
 
The Thoroughbreds drop to 1-6 overall and 0-1 in league play, while the Saints improve to 4-1 and 1-0.
 
 Jack Metzler led Skidmore with two goals while Matt Diaco made nine saves in goal to keep the visitors in the contest.

The first quarter was very evenly played, as each team managed seven shots to come away with a 2-2 tie after 15:00 minutes.  Quinn Hawkins and Kevin Mulvey scored for the Thoroughbreds.

The Saints opened the scodring in the second, but Seth Berger answered for Skidmore to tie the score at 3-3.  A late SLU goal made it 4-3 at the half.

St. Lawrence began to pull away in the third, as the home team opened with three straight goals to seize a 7-3 advantage. Skidmore would respond, though, and made it a game with two goals in the final 1:09 of the third to claw back to within two down 7-5.  After Josh Trachtenberg scored to make it 7-4, Metzler took a feed from Hawkins and buried his first of the game with 4.7 seconds left, giving the momentum to the Thoroughbreds heading into the fourth period.

St. Lawrence scored off the opening face-off of the fourth quarter to make it 8-5. Skidmore would answer with a tally from Metzler to make it 8-6, but the Saints came back right away with a goal and a final 9-6 lead.


"I have a lot of respect for coach Mike Mahoney and a very deep and talented St. Lawrence team," said Skidmore coach Patrick Hart.  "They play the game incredibly hard.
 
"We're obviously disappointed in the result of our first league game of the year.  We went into the game with a game plan that we felt confident in and for the most part our guys did a really good job of executing that game plan.  
 
"At the end of the day SLU made just a few more plays than we did, won a few more 50-50 Gbs and that's all it takes in tough league games.  Overall, I was proud of the effort of our guys and the way they rebounded from a really disappointing game on Tuesday.  They competed their tails off today.  We are going to continue to work on execution, fundamentals, and details in the week of prep for a really strong Vassar squad."
 
Skidmore is back in action March 29 at 1 p.m. at Vassar.