The Montana men's lacrosse team had an 8-1 deficit after the first quarter against the College of Idaho on March 10 in Caldwell, Idaho. The game changed drastically in the second half, but the Griz couldn't dig itself out of the hole the team endured in the first quarter.
Courtesy of James Larson— April 30, 2018
Montana dropped its fourth straight game of the season, 20-10 against the Coyotes. The Grizzlies were down 12-2 at halftime, but managed to score eight second half goals.
"It's hard when you're down, but you're out here for 60 minutes and are you going to let those 60 minutes get worse or are you going to do something about it," Head coach Tucker Sargent said. "We responded well and tried to make something better about it. The score wasn't in our favor but we kept fighting."
In the first half attackman Jimmy Pierce scored Montana's two goals. The defense lacked communication early on and that resulted in the 12-goal first-half barrage by the Coyotes.
"I think we were overwhelmed. It seemed like it was kind of a smack in the face and we didn't know how to respond," Defense-midfielder Nolan Davis said. "The second half we really picked it up and that definitely was a big boost."
Parker Swank dished out a pass to Miguel Generoso to get the scoring kicked off in the second half for Montana. Aidan Larson followed suit and found Travis Myers for another Grizzlies goal to bring it to 12-4.
College of Idaho scored five unanswered before Trent Tubbs found the back of the net. Pierce scored another and brought the score to 17-6.
"I'm just proud of how we bounced back as a team in the second half and we just kept fighting," Pierce said. "The result isn't what we wanted but we know what we got to work on heading into this week."
A silver lining is Montana outscored the Coyotes 4-3 in the fourth quarter. Generoso and Larson generated the scoring for the Grizzlies. Both finished the day with four points. Defenseman Eric Mott recorded six ground balls and defenseman Zev Revis picked up four. Goalkeeper Drew Moesel faced 44 shots and made 24 saves.
The Grizzlies seemed to have success when transitioning from defense to offense, something the team has struggled with early this season. Montana had only one failed clear out of 11 attempts throughout the nightmarish first half. The Grizzlies had seven successful clears and failed on five attempts during the second half.
Montana is now 1-4 and College of Idaho move to 3-0 on the season. The Grizzlies will kick off its divisional schedule against Central Washington (2-0) on March 16 and Gonzaga (1-2) on March 17. Gonzaga is coming off a 22-0 win against Seattle University, and Central Washington defeated Southern Oregon 10-9 in its last contest.
Lucas Ailport—Media Relations