The CAA is where anything can happen and it usually does.
On Thursday, anything was Hofstra upending top-seeded Delaware, 10-9, to advance to the CAA Tournament championship game for the first time since 2014.
The Pride used two decisive runs an early six-goal spurt and a late three-goal one plus a suffocating defensive effort and a hot hand from an unlikely hero to earn the victory.
Dylan McIntosh, who’s battled injury this year and throughout his career, came into the tournament with five goals all season. He matched that on only eight shots.
Hofstra coach Seth Tierney was emotional talking about McIntosh postgame. He chose the words tearjerking and heart-warming to talk about him and his road through injuries.
Mon Mar 15 2021 | Patrick Stevens | College
PHOTO BY KEVIN P. TUCKER
Delaware s Mark Bieda (48) had four goals and two assists in Delaware s 19-12 win over Drexel.
So it turned out there wasn’t quite as much separation this week as expected.
Chalk some of it up to Georgetown’s trip to Denver being delayed by three days due to snow, a blessedly normal sort of postponement in a year that’s already seen more than enough of them for virus-related reasons (Saturday alone featured five such games).
And some of it stems from just how North Carolina and Maryland collected key conference victories in the week’s most high-profile games.
Monday March 15th, 2021 8:00am
We are living with postponements and programs in pause. We witnessed monster goal-scoring runs this week.
We were treated to a more robust slate of Sunday games because of on-campus social distancing and facility availability. I think that’s a longterm positive. Why stack all the games on Saturday? The game grows when teams play on Thursday night, Friday night and Sunday afternoon. Everybody can’t play Saturday at the same time.
Maryland, North Carolina and Johns Hopkins picked up marquee wins. Duke dominated. Lehigh is legit. Vermont and Delaware are surging. UMass made its belated debut.
They proved all that right in a 14-12 win at No. 14 UAlbany. Very proud of these Cats for getting their first win at UAlbany, said coach Chris Feifs in a release. We know there is still much to improve from our performance today but happy with the grit we showed to dig in against a very talented UAlbany team. Liam Limoges and Ryan Cornell especially rose to the challenge and were outstanding today for us. Back to work on Monday for NJIT.
For Vermont, it showed some key things: First, Michael McCormack’s continued emergence as a threat. The Middlebury transfer stretches the field for Vermont, and he started the scoring in a back-and-forth opening section to the game. He continued with two goals and two assists.