FSU’s Men’s Lax Rally Up Win Against Messiah College

With three easy wins coming from the previous week, FSU’s Men’s Lacrosse team was looking to make a statement by coming out on top against the top 15th ranked in the South, Messiah College.

Days prior to the game,  Coach Pearce spoke out about the matchup against Messiah. He stated, “Messiah is a game that will really test us” then went on to say, “they’re a tough team.”

In the early minutes of a back and forth, bone chilling 18-degrees, the game seemed to be a defensive chess match that could be nicknamed, “The Frost Bowl”. Messiah’s Matthew Franken scored off an assist from Tyler Goglio with 8:31 left in the 1^st.

It took a minute exactly for preseason All-American Tate Rolland to answer Messiah with the first of his three strikes in the game.

After a testy 1^st quarter, the 2^nd proved to be a testament for both teams, with Rolland kicking it off with a strike coming in the quarter’s first 3 minutes.

With the passing of 45 seconds, FSU’s Blake Grudzien scored off an assist from Nick Stailey giving Stailey his second assist of the quarter.

After Messiah’s Justin Bradley scored, Grudzien scored his second strike of the 2^nd quarter. Following Grudzien’s strike, Adam Gross was stirred into the mix by scoring an unassisted strike with 5:21 left before the half.

After each team had gone into what is similar to a stalemate in chess, Messiah’s Trey Hanshew scored with :36 seconds left in the half, giving them some momentum ending the first half down 5-4.

Although the 2^nd quarter had a lot of points from both teams, the 3^rd quarter was a battle of possession, with both teams giving the ball away 5 times each. Seemingly, every other possession had a ground ball due to a stick check or simply a dropped ball.

Also early on in the 3^rd, Messiah scored twice. It was Blake Knobloch (13:17) and Matthew Franken (10:02) who gave Messiah a 6-5 lead.

With 4:39 left in the third, Tate Rolland showed everyone in attendance: players, coaches and spectators alike, why he was a preseason All-American by hitting a clutch strike tying the game up 6-6 and “capping” off his hat-trick.

Going into the 4^th, FSU noticeably had more confidence and held Messiah scoreless throughout the whole 15 minutes.

While holding up their defensive effort, FSU’s Keegan Colegrove scored early (10:59) giving Frostburg a 7-6 lead.

Most of the game was a defensive battle, but it was towards the last 5 minutes in the 4^th quarter that both teams really turned it on and pushed each other to finish the game accordingly.

Just when the game looked as if it were going to be a closer than wanted win, Nate Collins scored an exclamation goal with 3:21 left in the game giving the Bobcats the breathing room they wanted.

When asked about the play, Coach Pearce said, “We made a personnel change and kinda told Nate to be bit of a more player in space…he found space and went to it.”

FSU was able to come off of a big home win, making it 4 in a row against a very talented Messiah College. The Frostburg State Bobcats look to ride their wave of wins into Saturday’s game against a strong No. 16^th ranked, Ursinus College all with hopes of making it to not only the CAC tournament, but the NCAA tournament.