Eight members of the 2015 graduating class are credited with helping Loyola Maryland go 51-16 during their careers, but that is of little consolation because, for the first time since 2011, that group will not participate in the NCAA tournament.
That fate was determined after Tuesday's 12-11 loss to Army in the quarterfinals of the Patriot League tournament at Ridley Athletic Complex. The senior class was part of the 2012 squad that captured the national championship at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass., but that seemed like a distant memory to attackman Nikko Pontrello.
"It sucks ... to end like this," said Pontrello, who became only the eighth Greyhound to rank in the top 15 on the school's all-time list for goals, assists and points. "But from freshman year to now, it's been an awesome ride. I hope it continues for the juniors and the sophomores and the freshmen to come."
Senior defenseman Pat Frazier echoed Pontrello's sentiments, adding, "It's been a great ride with different types of teams all along the way. … It's just tough as a senior leaving the program with a 7-8 season. I think hopefully, the messages we've sent over the course of the year will stay and the results with that will come."
The cupboard is not even close to being bare for Loyola, which returns eight starters next season, including junior attackman Zach Herreweyers and his 47 goals. But coach Charley Toomey said the team must turn potential into results.
"The challenge for Loyola is how we handle this and how we move forward," he said. "I'm confident that we're going to continue to learn from this and we're going to grow. As we ask our guys to do, we're going to dig in. We're not going to put our heads in the sand, we're not going to be embarrassed by it. … It's time for Loyola to man up and move forward, and that's what we're going to prepare to do."
Circling back to "Three Things to Watch" …
1) Offensive diversity. After tying a career-best with six goals in the Greyhounds' 12-10 win at Army on March 14, Herreweyers scored just twice on nine shots Tuesday. But Pontrello, sophomore attackman Zack Sirico and freshman midfielder Jay Drapeau each scored twice to help the team open up an 11-6 advantage with 11:51 left in the fourth quarter. Pontrello said the offense was opportunistic before wilting in the final period.
"I think in the first three quarters, we played smart but aggressive, and the aggressive opportunities resulted in goals for us," said Pontrello, who also added three assists. "When we play fast and we play smart, we're tough to beat. Our transition game was OK. I think it could have been better. We shot pretty well early on and put some pressure on their goalie. They kind of seemed to figure us out as the game went on, especially in the fourth quarter even though we didn't get as many chances."
2) John Glesener. Glesener, the Black Knights senior attackman, scored the game-winning goal with 5.7 seconds left in the fourth quarter, but he had scored just one goal prior to his heroics. The encouraging sign for Army is that eight other players scored at least one goal each, including a pair of tallies each from sophomore attackman Cole Johnson and senior midfielder Alex Newsome. Coach Joe Alberici said the team has always had faith that it can generate production from someone other than Glesener.
"I think from the beginning, it was our feeling that we certainly have one of the very best players in the country in John Glesener," Alberici said. "But it was also the feeling of the staff that the other offensive players were as good as we've had in a long, long time. We got a goal from our third-line midfield, we got a goal from our defensive midfield. [Sophomore midfielder] Gunnar Miller, it's been a little bit since he's had one. So you have nine different goal scorers, and I think that was the key element in the game."
3) Openings. Entering the game, the Black Knights had overwhelmed opponents 49-18 in the first quarter and 45-17 in the third, but Loyola trailed by just one goal after the opening period and shut out the Black Knights in the third. The problem was, in the fourth quarter, Army dominated, 7-1. That performance mirrored a final period at Bucknell last Friday in which the Bison outscored the Greyhounds, 5-2, en route to a 10-9 overtime win. Loyola finished 0-6 in one-goal decisions, but the final two will resonate with Toomey for a while.
"The other ones, we had some chances late in those games to possibly tie it, but two of those six are going to rip our hearts out and certainly this is probably the biggest one," he said. "That's part of growing up and that's part of learning to finish games, and we're going to learn from this."