(Photo: Jacob Franklin/WCSN)
The No. 14 Arizona State men’s club lacrosse team lost 9-8 to No. 6 Colorado State Wednesday night in what was a tale of two halves.
Arizona State scored six unanswered goals in the second half, three in the final minute, but it was a case of too little too late for ASU.
“I think that last minute was pride for some guys,” ASU head coach Todd MacRobbie said.
“It all happened so fast.” sophomore goalie Cameron Moore said.
Moore filled in for Johnny Perlite, who didn’t play due to an illness.
“I think he played pretty awesome,” sophomore attackman Jake Marthens said. “He stepped up.”
ASU fell into an early 2-0 deficit with 8:10 left in the first quarter.
The Sun Devils responded with a goal from sophomore mid Ben Parietti to make it 2-1, but Colorado State rattled off two consecutive goals to make it 4-1 with two minutes left.
Marthens snuck a goal in with 28 seconds to cut the deficit to 4-2 headed into the second quarter.
The second quarter was a defensive battle, as neither team scored until there was under a minute remaining in the half.
Colorado State sophomore attack Blake Warner scored two goals in the final minute, his third of the first half, to put CSU up 6-2 entering the break.
CSU came out strong in the second half, scoring 3 straight goals to put ASU down 9-2.
Then, ASU simply came alive.
The Sun Devils scored 6 unanswered goals, four in the final quarter alone, and cut the deficit down to a single goal with just three seconds remaining.
Parietti started things early in the fourth quarter for ASU, scoring a goal with 11:34 to go.
Then Senior attack Rhett Rodgers tacked on his first goal of the game to cut the deficit to 9-6. Sophomore attack Patrick Haviland added a goal and suddenly it was a 9-7 game. The final goal came from Jake Marthens with three seconds left to cap off a hat trick.
“I think we tried to play a little more loose,” Marthens said. “We played really tight in the first half.”
However, time wasn’t on ASU’s side and they fell short.
“We came out sort of slow,” Moore said. “I think once the defense bought into the system we started rolling. We started getting GBs,” he said.
The final minute was one that showed flashes of brilliance for this ASU team, according to MacRobbie.
“They got to realize they can have that ability and do that for a whole sixty minutes, they can be a dominant team,” MacRobbie said.
ASU will have its work cut out for them Saturday as they take on No. 2 Colorado.
“Saturday is going to be its own different monster.” MacRobbie said.
The game will start at 1:30 and be played at ASU’s West campus.
