The Fairfield University men's lacrosse team plays its final home ECAC Lacrosse League game of the season on Saturday afternoon as it hosts Bellarmine University. The 1 p.m. game will be played on Lessing Field, with tickets available at the gate for $7 for adults, $3 for youth, college students and seniors, and groups of 10 or more $2 per person.
Fans unable to make the trip to Fairfield on Saturday can watch a
video stream of the game for $7.95, which includes an integrated Livestats viewer. Fans can also view
Livestats for free by clicking here.
Fairfield and Bellarmine are meeting for the second time and for the first time in the State of Connecticut. The Stags won the team's first-ever meeting, 13-4, last season in Louisville, Ky.
Today's game marks the fourth time that an
Andy Copelan coached team will play on Lessing Field and he is 2-1 on the Stags grass surface. The Stags are 1-1 against ECAC foes on Lessing Field, falling 9-4 to ninth-ranked Loyola on April 10, 2010, and defeating St. John's 17-5 on April 25, 2009. Copelan is 1-0 at Lessing against non-conference foes, defeating Hartford 12-9 last season.
Bellarmine is 4-6 overall and 1-6 in road games, but is coming off a 17-7 win over Presbyterian, on Saturday. The Knights are averaging 10.9 goals per game, while allowing an average of 11.3 to their opponents. The team has won 46.3 percent of the face-offs it has had this year, 118-255, and is clearing at an 80.5 percent success rate. Cameron Gardner and Karsen Leung have both tallied a team-leading 18 points over the first 10 games of the season. Leung has handed out a team-best 10 assists, while Austin Bright has touched net a team-leading 14 times. Craig Carson has a team-best 31 ground balls while Austin Powell has caused a team-best 13 turnovers. Dillon Ward has played 475 minutes, starting nine of 10 games, and has a .583 save percentage and a 10.48 GAA.
Brent Adams returned after missing six games and didn't miss a beat on Saturday at Hobart. He tallied three points in the game, with a goal and two assists, as well as scooping up two ground balls. Adams had not played since the season opener when he scored a goal against Lafayette, to go along with five ground balls.
Fairfield's man-down defense continues to impress having allowed opponents to score just three extra-man goals on the year. The Stags are killing off penalties at an 82.1 percent clip, which is good for sixth in the nation. Five times this season the Stags have not allowed an opponent to score in a man-up situation for the entire game. The Stags did not allow an opponent an extra-man goal in the first three games of the year until Villanova went 2-7. The Stags then were a perfect 6-6 in man-down situations against Vermont and Air Force, before Colgate went 1-2. Fairfield finished sixth in the nation in 2010 in man-down defense, allowing foes to score just 25 percent (13-52) of the time.
After allowing a season-high 11 goals to Colgate the Stags held Hobart to eight tallies and are allowing 6.75 goals per game, which is tops in the conference and sixth in the nation. Only three teams have scored more than eight goals against the Stags this season, with the same number being held to five or fewer goals. Fairfield finished last season ranked eighth in the nation in scoring defense, allowing just 8.4 goals per game and holding four opponents to five or less goals.
