The Colorado Mesa Mavericks defeated Colorado State University-Pueblo 21-7 in their first matchup of the season. The Mavericks were led by stellar defense, senior midfielder Brandon Wilson had five goals and one assist and senior faceoff man Michael Marino went 19-21, added two goals and 15 groundballs on the day.
“The guys came in and weathered a media storm this week, and I think they did a really nice job of battling some of the unwanted press this week, and I’m proud of them for playing hard, trusting in the game plan,” Head coach Vince Smith said “I’m proud of the way they executed and played with good sportsmanship and really kept their nose down and played the game it was supposed to be played”
CMU struck first with Wilson catching a pass on the crease from senior Jack Griffin for an easy finish just 50 seconds into the game. The first quarter was all Mavericks but the Thunderwolves goalie Garrett Breeling had four saves and limited CMU to only three goals in the quarter. The Thunderwolves had seven turnovers in the quarter.
The second quarter opened with Wilson putting two quick goals on the board, with Griffin adding another right behind to put them up 6-0 early in the quarter. The barrage of goals was ended by CSU-P’s Tommy Vassallo who put a rocket past redshirt sophomore goalie Nick Wilson. Every time the Thunderwolves scored in this quarter, the Mavericks would answer it quickly with two or three goals of their own. CMU had 17 groundballs and 15 shot on goal in the period to give them a 13-3 lead at half.
“We wanted Anthony Ferrie [to] handle the ball deep from the corners, he leads them in points, we were anticipating him playing attack tonight but they actually ran that through midfield, and so I think they did a little bit of that themselves, by not having him in a position to touch the ball more frequently on the offensive end, so our game plan was to just limit his touches to make the other guys beat us,” Smith said.
Both CSUP and CMU would swap goalies at half with junior Christian Cherry taking over for the Mavericks and Colton Rasmussen for the Thunderwolves. CSUP would get on the board first in this half, but it was a short-lived victory as the Mavericks would answer with a goal of their own. CMU would outscore their opponents 5-2 in the quarter to take a commanding 18-5 lead. Cherry would get two saves on four shots on goal after taking over at half.
The Mavericks freshman midfielder Tanner Watson would score first in the fourth, followed shortly after by sophomore attackman/midfielder Jacob Keyes. CSU-P would answer with their last two goals of the day but it just wasn’t enough on the day as CMU would just dominate the day. The Thunderwolves went 0-2 on man-up opportunities in the quarter.
“I think a lot of guys took a lot of heat this week, and I think there wasn’t any need to focus on anything particular, other than re-evaluating who we are as individuals and re-evaluating who we are as a staff and lacrosse program, just trying to get out there and execute to our fullest abilities,” Coach Smith said “and I think that is really what we saw tonight, guys really putting everything outside of the game away, and just focusing on running hard and sharing the ball and having fun.”
The last two games were the first consecutive winning games for the Mavericks all year. CMU will play again on Sunday against Adam State at 11 a.m.
