A year ago, Mount St. Mary's absorbed a 15-5 shellacking by Delaware that was part of a dispiriting 14-game losing streak to open the season.
So even though the Mountaineers suffered another setback to the Blue Hens on Tuesday by a score of 11-10, coach Tom Gravante took some solace in the narrowness of his team's loss.
"Our guys responded, which I'm very happy about," he said Wednesday afternoon. "That says a lot about the team and the potential of the team early on. We need to be fighters. After a 1-15 season, we're going to change the culture of this program, and you've got to be ready to go from start to finish."
Mount St. Mary's (1-1) actually scored the game's first three goals on Tuesday before Delaware battled back to take a 5-4 lead at halftime. But the Blue Hens scored five of the third quarter's first six goals and eventually held off the Mountaineers.
"We were up two at the end of the first quarter [4-2], but you can't get blanked," Gravante said. "In the second quarter, Delaware scored three goals and went into halftime with a 5-4 lead. You can't get blanked in a quarter. If we scored one goal, it's going into overtime. So it's disappointing, frustrating."
Gravante also bemoaned the team's 0-for-6 performance on extra-man opportunities. For the season, the man-up offense has converted just 2 of 8 chances, and Gravante said the unit has to make good on those situations.
"That makes a difference," he said. "That's like standing on the foul line and then just shooting the ball out of bounds. You've got to hit your foul shots. … We were 0-for-6 in man-up situations. If we just go 1-for-6, we tie that ball game. If we go 2-for-6, we can win it."