PARKERSBURG - The first season for any new sport at a school is always a learning experience - sometimes a long, arduous one with not a lot success in terms of wins.
Ohio Valley University's fledgling men's lacrosse program is no exception, as the Fighting Scots - in just their fourth game ever - bowed 22-2 to visiting La Roche College from Pittsburgh Tuesday at Stadium Field.
Steve Murphy got things going quickly for the Redhawks, now 4-5, with two goals in the first 55 seconds of the game - taking a feed from behind the net right in front of the goal at 14:13, then scoring again as La Roche rolled right down the field from the midfield faceoff to go up 2-0 at the 14:05 mark of the first period.
Matthew Hamill paced La Roche with four goals while Crawford Healy, Jean Thouin and Murphy notched three each.
As the count mounted though - 6-0 after one period, 13-0 at halftime and 19-0 after three periods - OVU goalie Tyler Ross, despite being peppered with 64 shots, a good number from close-in, point-blank range - put forth a stellar defensive effort with 23 saves.
OVU (0-4) eventually lit up the scoreboard with a pair of goals in the fourth period, first with 14:31 to play when Garrison Evans, off an assist by Jacob Borner, drilled the ball in on a sinking liner past the Redhawk goalie. Then a couple La Roche goals later, Stan Mackey scored for the Scots off an assist by Evans, who took a pass at midfield and fired the ball to Mackey going in on the goalie with 5:54 left.
OVU is a young team with over half of the squad being freshmen in its inaugural season, and ''for the most part in a situation like we're in, you kind of hope for the best,'' said the Scots' head lacrosse coach Carl Anderson, not at all discouraged by his team's play despite being winless thus far,
''We maybe have three or four guys at the most who have any actual lacrosse experience,'' noted Anderson. ''So we've kind of gone out and done the best we can. It's a learning experience every time we get out there. But every game, we get better and try to progress as we build the program.''
Anderson acknowledged, ''We had a couple missed opportunities today, but the final score makes it seem a little worse than it is. We started off a little slow -that's kind of been our problem throughout the year - but I think we finished well and kept our dignity out here.''
