Spate of turnovers weighing on Washington College men's lacrosse coach Jeff Shirk

"I don't know if you anticipate it," he said Thursday. "We've been practicing at a really high level and we stress it so much in practice about making good decisions and valuing the ball and doing the right things to try to minimize turnovers. So, yeah, I expected the guys to be a little nervous with a lot of guys in new spots, but we've got to clean some things up. We played timid at times and a little reserved at times, especially early. That's not who we are. So I can't say that I expected it, but we'll use it as a learning experience, and it's got to help the guys get more comfortable being in a big-game situation."

The Shoremen actually had an 8-6 lead 14 seconds into the fourth quarter. Shirk could have been more worried about the defense's inability to protect the advantage or the offense's inability to build on it, but he brought the conversation back to the turnovers.

"I think it comes down to valuing the ball a little bit more and making better decisions," he said. "We just got ourselves in position where we made some poor decisions, and it cost us. I don't think you can kind of pinpoint, 'Was it the defense being unable to stop them or the offense being unable to finish it?' I think it was all over the field, just becoming more accustomed to that situation and just making better decisions."