ASU Lacrosse: Sun Devils fall in home opener in physical matchup against the Seminoles

(Photo: Jacob Franklin/WCSN)

The Arizona State Sun Devils dropped their first game 6-5 against Florida State Friday night.

ASU found themselves down early, ending the first quarter down 2-1. FSU junior attack Davis Goodman scored both goals for the Seminoles in the opening quarter.

Arizona State sophomore attack Jake Marthens scored a hat trick in the losing effort. Marthens scored the only goal for ASU in the first quarter with 5:58 left in the first quarter to tie the game at 1-1.

“We had a pretty good scouting report on them,” Marthens said. “I just stuck near pipe on them and I had to finish.”

Florida State goalie Anthony Cicio racked up 9 saves in the Seminole victory.

“I think we gave him a couple of saves there. We shot right to his stick,” Marthens said. “I think if we would have shot a couple more off hip, the game would’ve been a different story.”

Florida State sophomore attack Steven Torres scored with 6:40 left in the half giving FSU a 3-2 advantage.

ASU responded quickly, however, scoring two consecutive goals in the final four minutes of the second half gave them a 4-3 lead headed into halftime.

Sophomore attack Patrick Haviland scored a goal with nine seconds remaining in the first half to give ASU their first lead of the night.

Florida State took control of the game in the third quarter. The Seminoles scored 3 straight goals taking a 6-4 lead into the fourth quarter. Senior midfielder Darby Brower scored with 10:15 remaining in the quarter.

Senior defender Kevin Hoppey scored a goal of his own to regain the lead for FSU at 5-4. Senior attack Cole Lindquist added another with 4:07 remaining in the quarter to give the Seminoles a two point lead.

ASU was unable to come back and tie the game. Sophomore mid Ben Parietti scored with 5:56 remaining in the game, but 5-6 was as close as ASU could cut the lead down. While ASU did only allow six goals, goalie Johnny Perlite and MacRobbie both thought the defense could’ve been better.

“Our defense played a hell of a game,” Perlite said.

“Our goal is to have 5 goals or less against,” MacRobbie said. “Six goals is good but it’s not good enough.”

Looking ahead for ASU, the Sun Devils will travel to Georgia to play Georgia Tech on February 18. Head coach Todd MacRobbie was happy with his teams effort in the fourth quarter.

“I think something we can take forward is that they played at the end,” MacRobbie said.

MacRobbie also said that if the team had played the entire game like they did the fourth quarter, things could’ve ended differently for ASU.

“We just got to get them to do that the whole entire time.” MacRobbie said.