After dropping two consecutive road games, the men's lacrosse team got back to business Saturday at Meister-Kavan Field, brushing aside winless St. Joseph's University 11-4. Bruno (2-2) shut out the Hawks (0-5) in the first half to jump out to a 6-0 lead and coasted the rest of the way to the win.
"I'm pleased with our defense," said Head Coach Lars Tiffany '90. "We were able to force a tempo that St. Joe's didn't want to play. Our opponent today wanted to play a patient, slow game, and we wanted to play a fast transition game. … I thought we did a really nice job as a unit."
Captain Andrew Feinberg '11, who led the Bears' attack with four goals and an assist, echoed his coach.
"Our defense has been playing well in all four games," Feinberg said. "I would not want to play our defense if I were another team. They just work well as a unit."
In addition to Feinberg's four goals, Rob Schlesinger '12 and Alex Jones '13 added two apiece.
Feinberg leads the Bears with 13 goals on the season, and his 112 career goals are the seventh-best in Brown history.
"Andrew Feinberg is a natural-born goal scorer," Tiffany said. "But he's the hardest working guy on the team. It's funny when you have someone with 108 goals here — he's always the one grabbing the ball bucket to do more shooting. … Andrew's always the one taking more and more shots."
Brown jumped out to a quick lead courtesy of two unassisted goals from Schlesinger in the first eight minutes. With 4:05 left to play in the first quarter, Feinberg scored his first goal of the day on a shot that glanced off the post. Only seven seconds later, Feinberg added his second goal to extend Bruno's lead to 4-0. Tommy Capone '14 took a faceoff and initiated a series of quick passes that found Feinberg on the doorstep for the score.
In the second quarter, the Hawks tightened up their defense, but the Bears broke through in the final two minutes to add to their lead. With 1:33 left in the half, Jones used his size and strength to create space before firing a rocket over St. Joseph's goalie Chris Moffa's left shoulder. With under a minute to play, Feinberg completed his hat trick with another score from close range, this time on a nice find from Schlesinger.
In the third quarter, St. Joseph's finally got on the board, but the Bears answered right back. Jones bounced one past Moffa for his second goal of the day, and with 1:31 remaining in the quarter, Feinberg added his fourth to put the score at 8-1.
The Bears added three goals in the final quarter to stretch the onslaught to 11-1 before conceding three late consolation goals to the Hawks.
Just like in the Feb. 26 Quinnipiac win, every Brown player had entered the game by the final whistle.
The win moves the Bears back to .500 after losses to the No. 5 University of Massachusetts at Amherst and the University of Hartford.
Feinberg said Saturday's commanding victory should help the team regain momentum before its first Ivy League game against Harvard.
Tiffany said that game is when the real test will begin.
"Now we head into the Ivy League schedule playing a very fast, athletic, aggressive Harvard team," Tiffany said. "We still have a lot to prove. It's good to win this game, but there's so much more to prove, and that's got to start next Saturday against Harvard."
