Box Score (.PDF) | Highlights

LOWELL, Mass. – Despite a season-high in goals, the UMass Lowell men's lacrosse team suffered defeat to Vermont, 18-10, in their conference home opener Saturday afternoon at Cushing Field Complex.

"We had a really great crowd out there today and the support was excellent," said Head Coach Ed Stephenson. "On the field we made too many mistakes and gave Vermont opportunities to be successful and credit to them, they capitalized."

The River Hawks (1-7, 0-2) got off to a dream start with two goals in the opening 5:07 of the first quarter. Freshman Sean Tyrrell (Calgary, Alberta) opened the scoring with an unassisted goal at the 13:53 mark and Cory Highfield (Toronto, Ontario) added an unassisted goal four minutes later to double the advantage.

The Catamounts (3-6, 1-0) responded however and ended the first period with six consecutive goals including three by Cam Milligan.

After second-quarter goals by Tyrrell and sophomore Nicholas Pino (North Andover, Mass) helped cut into the deficit, Vermont ended the half with three straight goals to carry a 10-4 lead into halftime.

Pino added two goals in the third quarter to complete his first career hat trick while Tyrrell scored the only other goal of the quarter for the River Hawks for his second career three-goal performance.

In the fourth quarter, Sam Klingsporn (Aloha, Ore.) scored his seventh goal of the season three minutes in and Zack Schwartz (Huntington, N.Y.) notched his first career goal with 6:07 remaining. Highfield netted his second of the game with 3:15 left in the contest for the final River Hawks tally.

River Hawk goalkeepers Giles Ober (Southborough, Mass.), Alex Desmarais (Atkinson, N.H.) and Kevin Lally combined to make 21 saves. Ober made 2 stops on 10 shots faced while Desmarais came on in relief and made a career-high 18 saves on 27 shots.

The Catamounts held the advantage in shots (59-42), ground balls (50-29) and face-offs (23-9) while scoring on their only two opportunities with an extra man.

UMass Lowell returns to action on March 28 on the road at UAlbany at 3 p.m.