In a disappointing continuation of recent events, the Oberlin men’s lacrosse team came away with another defeat, 11-1, this past Tuesday, in a home game against Wheeling Jesuit University.
During the first half of the match, the Yeomen suffered a pounding by the visitors, who scored 10 goals to Oberlin’s zero. Yet by the second half, Oberlin had mustered enough defensive chutzpah to push their opponents into check, allowing the Jesuits to score merely one more goal for the remainder of the match. It may have been, however, that too much of the Oberlin team’s newly-found energy during the second half was diverted to defense, preventing the team from scoring more than a single goal during this period.
Senior Brian Lange, who scored the lone goal for the Yeomen, said, “We transitioned into a zone type defense for the second half to better answer the two men they had at the exposition [or behind the goal]. When that happened, they employed a more perimeter type game. With that, [senior] Dave Smolev was able to make some pretty good saves. We got the ball up-field. I got a pass from [sophomore] Logan Hegg and found the upper right side of the net, which is pretty much the only place that shot could have gone.”
Commenting about the game as a whole, junior Sam Bryar said, “We were trying to get ourselves together. They were a tough team. They were a good team. We didn’t know how we were going to fare against them. And that’s what we were trying to figure out during the first half. We [only] found a rhythm during the second half, [which was] a really strong performance by our defense. We owe a lot to our goalie Smolev. It’s too bad we didn’t have the same energy for the first half.”

The Yeomen play their penultimate game this Saturday, May 4, against the College of Wooster at 1:30 p.m. in Dill Field.
Regarding the upcoming event, Bryar further said, “I was glad to see Brian getting that goal this time. He’s been a help this year. Hopefully we’ll see some more of that this Saturday.”