No. 3 Army men’s lax suffers first loss to BU

Army men’s lacrosse coach Joe Alberici is always worried about running into a hot goalie. 

Meet Will Barnes. The Boston University senior goaltender stymied and frustrated the Black Knights all day on Saturday, stopping an impressive 22 of the 31 shots he faced as the Terriers handed Army its first loss of the season, 10-9 in overtime in Patriot League play at Michie Stadium.

Barnes had to be great Saturday, simply because Army’s junior goalie Sean Byrne was just about as good as he was. Byrne stopped 18 of 28 Boston University shots. But, unfortunately, one by Jimmy Kohr from around 15 yards found the net in the extra session to give the Terriers the win. 

Army, ranked third in the nation, is now 7-1 on the season and, more importantly, tied at 3-1 with the Terriers, also 7-1 overall, at the top of the Patriot League standings. Boston University holds the tiebreaker based on head-to-head results. 

“BU is a great team and they just played really hard and they had outstanding goaltending today,” said Alberici. “Twenty-two saves are a rarity in our sport. We had great goaltending ourselves. Sean Byrne was outstanding with 18 saves and played as good as anyone on the field today.

“They are a tough team that capitalizes on your mistakes and we made a couple and they capitalized on them and we did not do a great job offensively. We generated 57 shots which is a good thing, but when you generate that number we need more than nine goals.”

The loss could be a warning to the Black Knights, who are in the midst of their toughest stretch of the regular season. After BU, Army hosts No. 5 North Carolina next Saturday and then have road games at No. 18 Colgate and Navy.

“We know Boston will be there at the end around playoff time and playoff seedings,” Alberici said. “We have to get back to work. We have a big non-conference game with (North) Carolina coming into town, with a top five program that I am sure will have our attention. For us, we have to practice better and the results on Saturday will come from that.”

Alberici said he saw some very good things on the field from Army in what he called a tough loss. One was the play of freshman Hill Plunkett, who was moved up to the first attack line with his brother, junior Evan Plunkett, and had two goals. 

“There are others,” he said. “It was not a situation where we did not play well across the board. There are just some things that we need to do better and execute at a higher level.”

Boston University was able to shut down Army’s two big scoring guns. Senior Jackson Eicher was held to 11 shots and just two goals and freshman Brayden Fountain also finished with two goals on six shots. Fountain’s second goal, from right in front of the BU goal on a scramble with 32 seconds left in regulation, tied the score, 9-9. 

With all-American faceoff specialist Will Coletti still out with a lower-body injury, Robert Simone won 13 of 21 faceoffs and Alex Vaccaro won 1-of-2 for Army.