ALBION, MICH. -- The Trine University men's lacrosse team suffered a loss to Albion (Mich.) College, 14-6, in a semifinal game of the Michigan Intercollegiate Athletic Association Tournament ending its season in Albion, Mich.
Albion (13-1) scored five straight goals to start the game, beginning with a four-goal first quarter to jump out to a sizeable lead early.
The Britons struck for their fifth goal a minute-and-a-half into play in the second period before Trine's (5-7) Tyler Corless (St Clair Shores, Mich./De La Salle) put the Thunder on the scoreboard with a goal at the 3:34 mark to make it a 5-1 game. The Corless goal was the start of an offensive fleury as the two teams combined for four goals in the final 3:30 of the half. Albion answered the Corless goal with another score about a minute later to extend the margin back out to five goals. With less than a minute remaining before the intermisson, junior Matt Zanichelli (Rolling Meadows, Ill./William Fremd) scored Trine's second goal of the game on a man advantage to narrow the gap to 6-2. But momentum quickly swung back in favor of the home team as the Britons tacked on a final goal of the half just 10 seconds following the Zanichelli marker and made the score, 7-2, at the intermission.
Both teams scored three goals in the third period with Albion scoring first at the 12:51 mark. Trine then went on a three-goal scoring run with freshman Collin Custer (Spanaway, Wash./Bethel) scoring two of those goals with 11:13 and 10:07 to play in the period. Senior Dave Keptner (Midland, Mich./H.H. Dow) squeezed in a goal between the two scores by Custer at the 10:33 mark to complete the run and pull Trine to within three goals, 8-5. But Albion responded with a pair of goals to end the quarter and gain a bit of breathing room heading into the final frame by a margin of 10-5.
Albion continued to pull away in the fourth quarter thanks to four straight additional goals to open play and complete a string of six unanswered going back to the end of the third period. The final goal for the Britons came with just under three minutes to go and made the score 14-5. Trine recorded the final goal of the contest when Zanichelli found the back of the net for the second time in the game at the 1:41 mark, but time wasn't on the Thunder's side as the Albion lead was enough to have the Britons come away with the victory, 14-6.
Custer and Corless led Trine offensively with three points each on the night. Custer scored the two goals and also had an assist, while Corless recorded a goal scored and assisted on two others. Zanichelli had a two-point night with his two scores and Keptner rounded out the multi-point games with a goal and an assist. Sophomore Noah Markus (Woodbury, Minn./East Ridge) recorded an assist on Zanichelli's last goal to complete the list of point scorers for the Thunder.
Defensively, Keptner had a pair of caused turnovers to tie for the game-high. Sophomore Jack Konicek (Geneva, Ill./Geneva) led all players in ground balls with 12 and was 17-of-24 on faceoffs.
In net, freshman Nick DiPaolo (Flemington, N.J./Immaculate) played all 60 minutes and made eight saves.
Trine ends the 2021 season with a 5-7 record and made its fifth MIAA Tournament appearance. The Thunder also posted their first tournament win in the quarterfinals against Alma on May 1.
