EMMITSBURG — Of all the numbers from Mount St. Mary's 7-4 loss to No. 17 Towson at Waldron Family Stadium on Friday that puzzled coach Tom Gravante, the set that stood out to him most involved the clearing game.
The Mountaineers failed on eight of 21 clears, and at least one directly led to a Tigers goal. Redshirt senior midfielder Andrew Hodgson intercepted an outlet pass from freshman goalkeeper Matt Vierheller and fed junior attackman Spencer Parks (St. Paul's), alone on the doorstep, for a goal to tie the score at 2 with 8:08 left in the second quarter.
Gravante said Vierheller, who made a career- and game-high 17 saves against the Tigers, must take greater care with his passes.
"Matt Vierheller plays a great game, but at times, he shoots himself in the foot," Gravante said. "And when you've got a good team, they're going to make you pay, and a few times, they got the ball back off of clears and they got longer time of possession and eventually, some of those shots are going to fall. He does a nice job in terms of saves. He got 17, and four in the third quarter, but they took 12 shots. They took 25 shots in the second half to our nine. That's a lot of possession for them, which is wear and tear for our defense and turning him out as a goalie. That's the difference."
Towson coach Shawn Nadelen had a different perspective, complimenting his offensive players for refusing to give up and allow Mount St. Mary's to set up its offense.
"The offense played great defense," he said. "We rode the [crud] out of these guys and got a lot of second- and third-chance opportunities through our ride. That helped us, even though we weren't putting them on the scoreboard. It's just tough playing defense for a second and third time. … That's something that our defense appreciates and really rallied around."
The Mountaineers historically have had trouble clearing the ball against the Tigers. In each of their past five meetings, Mount St. Mary's has erred on at least three clearing chances, including a 13-for-18 showing in 2011. Not coincidentally, Towson has won all five of those games.
"It seems like I get that jinx on me with Towson," Gravante said. "We can't clear the ball. We fail almost every year, and I don't know why."
Circling back to "Three Things to Watch" …
1) The Mountaineers offense. After scoring 11 and 10 goals in its first two games, Mount St. Mary's failed to reach double digits against the Tigers. The Mountaineers also finished the game without an assist, which was part of Towson's defensive strategy, according to Tigers junior defenseman Mike Lowe.
"We wanted out middies to force them toward the middle instead of down the alleys," said Lowe, who posted three ground balls and two caused turnovers. "We wanted to make them feeders first, not shooters. We wanted to slide to them and go early, make them make a pass and maybe pick it off or knock it down. After that, we just tried to get it up and out and get the ball back to the offense."
2) The Tigers offense. Sophomore attackman Joe Seider (Hereford) said the offense would have scored five or six more goals in the first half if not for Vierheller, who had 11 saves by halftime. During a Towson extra-man opportunity in the second quarter, Vierheller made stick saves on Seider's shot from the left wing and redshirt senior midfielder Andrew Hodgson's attempt from the left alley. He wrapped up the first half with stick saves on junior midfielder Ben McCarty's looks from the right point and right alley. Nadelen praised his players for not allowing frustration to overtake them.
"We just stayed focused and continued to work the ball and take good shots," he said. "We tried to put [the shots] down on the pipes a little bit more because I thought a few of the shots were toward the center of the cage. We wanted to make him work to get his hands to the shots. So we stayed with that attack mindset offensively and were able to get a few more goals."
3) Faceoffs for both teams. In a matchup of teams that have struggled to win draws this season, the Tigers prevailed thanks to Alec Burckley. The sophomore easily had his best outing of the season, winning 10 of 15 faceoffs and collecting six ground balls. Burckley, who was 6-for-15 in Sunday's 9-6 victory at Georgetown, said he didn't make any drastic changes to his technique against Mount St. Mary's senior duo of Nick Haley (3-for-7) and Mike Celmer (2-for-8).
"I just got in a groove today and felt good," Burckley said. "My wings helped a lot. They came up with a lot of the 50-50 balls I was losing, and that was big for us. Just got to keep building upon it going into the next game."