The men’s lacrosse team was defeated by the Holy Cross Crusaders 12-6 on a beautiful Saturday afternoon this past weekend. Despite the great weather, the Raiders were outscored 8-3 in the second half after only trailing by one goal at halftime. Colgate falls to 3-9 overall and just 1-6 in Patriot League competition on the season.

Prior to the opening faceoff, the Raiders honored 10 seniors who have compiled an impressive four-year resumé, highlighted by winning the Patriot League Championship last season which resulted in a berth in the NCAA playoffs.

The Raiders got off to a great start when sophomore attacker Anthony Abbadessa got Colgate on the board with an unassisted goal just 46 seconds into the game. But Holy Cross would score the next three unanswered goals. Junior midfielder Peter Donato would score for Colgate with just 2:56 remaining in the first quarter, assisted by Abbadessa, to cut the Crusaders lead to one heading into the second quarter. Senior midfielder Cam Williams scored just 48 seconds into the second quarter to tie the game at 3. Holy Cross would only tally once in the period to give themselves a 4-3 lead at halftime.

Senior midfielder Tyler Rigo, once again assisted by Abbadessa, and sophomore attacker Joe Delaney would both score for the Raiders in the period. Two goals from Holy Cross junior attacker Jon Vogel matched both Raider goals.  Coupled with four other Crusader goals, Holy Cross took a 10-5 lead after three quarters. The Crusaders would outscore the Raiders 6-2 in that quarter.

Vogel would add two more goals in the fourth quarter to give him four on the afternoon and 35 goals on the season. Rigo would add his second goal of Senior Day for the Raiders to complete the scoring at 12-6 in favor of Holy Cross.

Out of the combined 18 goals scored on the afternoon, only four goals were assisted on. Despite having their best statistical game of the year at the faceoff X, with sophomore midfielder Collin Orr winning 10 of 14 and junior

midfielder Peter Marchetto grabbing five of seven, Colgate was outshot 49-26 by Holy Cross. Junior goaltender Brandon Burke stopped eight Crusader shots before giving way to senior goaltender Jake Danehy who added a save on his Senior Day. Colgate was defeated in the ground ball battle 31-27.

The Raiders will complete their eighth game in the conference slate when they travel to Pennsylvania to play the Lafayette Leopards at 7 p.m. this Friday night. The Leopards are having a tough year as they fell to 0-7 in conference play after being defeated 14-7 by the Bucknell Bison. Colgate is 1-8 and has lost their last seven games. 

Following their game with Lafayette, the Raiders will complete their 2016 campaign against Syracuse inside the Carrier Dome on May 7. The game will take place following the conference tournaments, which unfortunately they will not qualify for, in a traditional end of the season matchup with their upstate New York rivals. The Raiders played the Orange extremely tight in their matchup last season against the then No. 1 ranked Orange in Hamilton, NY in front of a crowd of 5,310.