Salisbury not licking its wounds
If you're expecting the eight-time reigning national champion Sea Gulls, who fell from No. 1 to No. 4 in the latest Division III poll after Saturday's upset loss to Gettysburg, to feel a little blue, guess again. The team is eager to regain its status atop the poll, and that process begins Tuesday against Mary Washington.
"I think everybody in lacrosse cares that they’re No. 1," Salisbury coach Jim Berkman said earlier today. "I think if they say they’re not, they’re pulling wool over your eyes. It’s a lot of prestige for your program, and it gives the kids a sense of confidence and a sense of pride. I think anybody would be lying to you if they told you that they didn’t want to be No. 1."
The 11-10 setback to the No. 9 Bullets (6-3) snapped the 10-1 Sea Gulls' 55-game winning streak and 87-game regular-season winning run. Salisbury also suffered a loss at home for the first time since April 10, 2003 -- a span of 80 contests.
Despite taking 14 more shots and scooping up seven more groundballs than Gettysburg, Salisbury found itself in a hole when the Bullets broke a 8-8 tie at the end of the third quarter with the first two goals of the fourth period. Junior attackman Mike Winter scored a goal with 7:26 left to cut the deficit in half, but Gettysburg got a goal with 3:03 left to regain a two-goal cushion.
Junior midfielder Mike Von Kamecke converted an extra-man advantage with 43 seconds left, but the Sea Gulls' rally ended when the Bullets' goalkeeper corralled a loose ball and Gettysburg held onto the ball to run out the clock.
Berkman said the Bullets took advantage of some rarely seen errors by the Salisbury players.
"I don’t think we played bad, but we didn’t play our best," he said. "Our guys know they made some mistakes that were very apparent, and a good team makes you pay for your mistakes. The seven or eight blatant mistakes that we made, in a lot of other games, we got away with not giving up a goal. But they exposed us on those mistakes and took advantage of it, and that’s the difference in a one-goal game.
"But I was proud of our kids," he continued. "We were down two and we came flying back. We had a chance to tie the game on a fast break that we dropped the ball on with 25 seconds left in the game. So we never gave up, and hopefully we can build on that and take care of business on Tuesday and get ready for a battle [against No. 1 Stevenson] on Saturday."
