Lynchburg lacrosse has no problem in opener

By: Chris Humphreys | New Era Progress
Published: February 13, 2012

The conditions may have been frigid, but it didn’t take long for Lynchburg College’s men’s lacrosse team to heat things up in Hornets’ season opener against visiting Birmingham Southern College on Saturday.

LC’s Jeff Schwartz won the opening face-off, raced straight down the center of the field and fired a shot past the Panthers goalie to give Lynchburg its first lead of the season just seven seconds after the first whistle blew. The Hornets went on to pound BSC 21-4.

“We wanted to get on these guys from the get-go and then play at our speed and I thought our guys rose to that challenge,” Hornets coach Steve Koudelka said.

Lynchburg (1-0) had a 7-0 lead at the end of the first quarter and led 15-0 at halftime. The Panthers (0-1) finally got on the scoreboard with 11:49 to play in the third quarter on Jacob McPherson’s goals that made the score 16-1 Hornets.

Lynchburg had 16 different players score a goal. Dylan Hoff led the Hornets with three goals and Matt Manzo, Pat Ohrem and Todd Galvin each scored twice. LC’s starting goalie, Franc Cook, played the first two quarters and recorded five saves and a team-high five groundballs.

“I told them let the ball do the work and lets get as many guys into the scoring column as we can,” Koudelka said. “We are not a team that ever really wants one guy to have [all of the goals] and they did that very well today.”

LC enters the season ranked 15th in both the Lacrosse Magazine and USILA preseason polls and eighth in the Inside Lacrosse poll. Lynchburg also finished first in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference’s preseason coaches poll, edging Roanoke College by one point (46-45). Both schools

received four first-place votes.

The Hornets make the trip up to Salisbury, Md., on Saturday to play the defending Division III champion Salisbury University Sea Gulls before hosting Franklin & Marshall on Feb. 25.

“It is good for us to get some of the game jitters out because we have a heck of an opponent coming up next week,” Koudelka said.