It took the Binghamton men's lacrosse team less than two hours to rout host UMBC on Saturday, but that wasn't the end of the Retrievers' day.
They held a 50-minute, closed-door meeting after the 13-4 thumping at UMBC Stadium, letting loose equal amounts of frustration and anger. At one point, someone inside their locker room yelled: "I don't ever want to feel that way ever again!"
Coach Don Zimmerman called the team meeting necessary after UMBC (2-4, 0-1 America East Conference) dropped its conference opener. Despite taking a 2-0 lead just 5:19 into the first quarter, the Retreivers didn't put up much of a fight before an announced 434.
"When you have a performance like that, you need to have one of these [meetings], because for the coaches, players, trainers, strength coaches, their guts are on the floor right now," he said. "[We are] disappointed, embarrassed, whatever you want to call it."
Almost every unit on the team had a hand in its worst loss to the Bearcats in series history.
Binghamton's crisp ball movement on offense had UMBC's defensive players scrambling to keep up, and the Bearcats (2-3, 1-0) finished with eight assists, their second-highest total of the season.
The defense also failed on numerous occasions to pick up loose balls that could have become opportunities for the offense. Binghamton pounced on its second and third chances, outshooting the Retrievers 42-23.
Sophomore midfielder Tyler Deluca led all scorers with four goals, and two others also finished with four points. Senior attackman Paul O'Donnell recorded three goals and an assist, and senior attackman Tucker Nelson had a goal and three assists.
"I thought our offense played pretty smart when we had the ball," said Bearcats coach Scott Nelson, Tucker Nelson's father. "We didn't take dumb shots. We worked pretty hard to get good shots. So it wasn't like we were winning faceoffs and just shooting it. We were looking for really good ones, and that put a lot of pressure on their D. You could see that their short-stick D-middies were getting tired as the game went on. At one time, we were actually able to play for a while and sub a whole new midfield against their tired guys."
Faceoff play aided Binghamton's seven- and five-goal runs. With help from freshman short-stick defensive midfielder Joe Grossi and junior long-stick midfielder George Deignan, sophomore Daniel Mazurek won 13 of 18 draws (72.2 percent). That trio had 15 of the team's 31 ground balls.
"We've faced a couple of hard faceoff guys this season and we were fortunate enough today to get the possessions," Tucker Nelson said. "It was kind of like make it, take it, and it allowed us not to give their offense the ball."
UMBC was shut out for 28:31 and took just 12 shots through the first three quarters, an indictment of the team's scant time of possession. But Zimmerman said the offense also hurt any hopes of a comeback by being too impatient when it did have the ball.
"We didn't show a lot of poise," he said. "We would play defense for three or four minutes, and all of a sudden, we would have a chance to can one, and we shot the ball right in the goalie's stick. You just can't do that. That's one of the worst turnovers there is, to shoot the ball stick-side high on a goalkeeper. It's saying: 'Here you go. You have the ball.' "
Sophomore Max Maxwell (two assists), who shifted from his usual attack spot to the midfield, was the only Retriever with multiple points. Redshirt sophomore goalkeeper Connor Gordon made six saves but was pulled after giving up the Bearcats' 11th goal with 9:45 left in regulation. Freshman David Pisanic (Boys' Latin) surrendered two goals and made two stops.
The Retrievers will have an opportunity to even their America East record on Saturday when they visit Stony Brook (5-2, 0-1). But Zimmerman said the team's preparations must begin at a personal level.
"These guys have tonight, tomorrow to think about what happened on the field today, what was said in the locker room after the game and come out and show that they understand where we are and what we need to do and go out there and be willing to go at one another in practice," he said.