The Oberlin College men’s lacrosse team lost to Marietta College, 9-7, in the first game of their season last Monday, March 11. The loss to Marietta hurts especially given that they were one of two teams that Oberlin defeated last spring.

Senior goalie Dave Smolev said of the team’s performance, “I’m pretty disappointed about it. We made a lot of mistakes. Most of the guys are young and inexperienced. Hopefully, we’ll be getting better. At the moment, a lot of guys are sick and hurt. A lot of the guys need to become more acclimated to the game.”

Smolev was one of seven players to score in the contest; the other six included juniors Erik Vachon, Brian Lange and Alexander Yeh; sophomore Logan Hegg; and first-years Nate Beckett and Robert Strauser.
Strauser echoed Smolev’s feelings, but added a tint of optimism in his assessment. “It is disappointing that we lost. We fought real hard all game. We worked the ball around a lot. Everybody got their fair share in. We showed improvement from the start of the game to the end. We’re gonna build for upcoming games, and we’re working hard in practice.”
Hegg provided an even more positive appraisal of the effort, saying, “I thought we did really well. We’re short on numbers so it hurts us pretty hard. I got a goal and an assist, and I’ve got bad knees, so I thought I did pretty well. I think we’ll improve in years to come. We had three guys on the team who have only played lacrosse for four weeks. So we can only improve in that respect.”

The Yeomen’s next game is Saturday at St. Vincent (Pa.) College at 1 p.m.