By Rebecca Dann

The men’s lacrosse team played a tough game against Wittenberg University this past Saturday in Springfield, Ohio, losing 10-4. The Lords now have an overall record of 6-5 and a North Coast Athletic Conference (NCAC) record of 3-2. After a strong offensive game last week against the College of Wooster, the Lords were unable to catch up to the Wittenberg Tigers.

“The Wittenberg game was challenging,” Head Coach Doug Misarti said. “We came out and I thought we played some pretty good offense in the first quarter and had some good opportunities. But the [Wittenberg] goalie made some nice saves and I don’t know if we shot as well as we would have wanted to. I think we had an opportunity to grab an early lead, but we didn’t take full advantage of that. We then had a couple of clearing errors that Wittenberg took advantage of and I felt that the first quarter set the tone for the rest of the game.”

Wittenberg scored its first two goals within the first four minutes of the first quarter, gaining the lead. Kenyon scored three minutes later as Pierce Kraft ’18 scored the Lords’ first goal of the game. Just a minute later Wittenberg scored their third goal of the game, and then followed up with another goal, bringing the score to 4-1. C.J. Clinkscales ’16, assisted by Robert Jacobs ’17, managed to score just before the end of the quarter to bring the score to 4-2. Wittenberg’s lead only increased in the following quarter and by halftime the score was 7-3. Jacobs scored Kenyon’s only goal of the second quarter. The Lords were unable to get by Wittenberg’s defense in the third quarter, as the Tigers added another goal to their score to make the game 8-3. Kenyon was unable to gain momentum in the fourth quarter to catch their opponent, and Wittenberg scored two more goals. The Lords did manage to score one more goal in the last 42 seconds of the game, as Nicky Lenard ’15, assisted by Jonah Florence ’18, scored to bring the final score to 10-4.

“I think that we could have played better and I think the players would certainly say that as well,” Misarti said. “So it was a frustrating game but you live and learn and we have another opportunity tonight.”

The Lords then played a crucial game against Oberlin College last night. They won the game 12-6 and have now secured a place in the NCAC playoffs.