Army Falls to Loyola in Semifinals

Friday, May 7

Bethleham, PA

7 PM

Army West Point

7-4

Loyola Maryland

10-5

Loyola

Army West Point

Army Falls to Loyola in Semifinals

May 07, 2021 | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score

BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The 10th-ranked Army West Point men's lacrosse team fell to 14th-ranked Loyola, 11-10, in the Patriot League Semifinals at the Ulrich Sports Complex.

The Black Knights (7-4) were led by Brendan Nicthern, who tallied six points on three goals and three assists with three of the six points coming late in the fourth quarter. Aidan Byrnes and Nickolas Edinger each tallied a pair of goals as well.

Wyatt Schupler stopped 12 shots for the Black Knights and Stevie Grabher was 15-of-24 at the faceoff with 11 ground balls.

"We have a talented and tough team and that showed today in a matchup against another top team in the country," head coach Joe Alberici said. "The Army Family has battled and been resilient all year and today was no different. In a one goal back and forth game every play gets magnified and we came up on the short end tonight. With that being said I could not be prouder of this group. We'll now wait and hope the selection committee sees our quality wins on the road and strength of schedule worthy of an at- large selection."

The selection show for the upcoming NCAA Tournament will take place on Sunday night at 9 p.m. on ESPNU.

It took both teams a bit of time to get into the game and the Black Knights scored three goals in the final two minutes of the first quarter to take a 3-2 advantage after the first quarter. Edinger, Byrnes and Kielbasa added the three tallies.

The scoring slowed down for Army in the second quarter with only one tally coming from Edinger and the Black Knights were down 5-4 at the break.

The third quarter saw four ties and a lead change as neither team could separate from the other. Nichtern scored the first of his three on the day early in the third to tie the game at 5-5, but Loyola answered a minute later with a tally from Aidan Olmstead with 12 minutes left in the frame.

Army fired back with goals from Jacob Morin and Byrnes to give the Black Knights their third lead of the game at 7-6. Unfortunately, the Black Knights couldn't expand the lead and the Greyhounds tied it up again with Peter Swindell scoring man-up to end the third quarter in a 7-7 tie.

Loyola kept the momentum into the fourth quarter and scored the opening three goals to build the largest lead of the game at 10-7. Army chipped away with Nichtern scoring his second at 7:07 left, but the Greyhounds answered again for the three-goal lead at 11-8 with six minutes left.

Bobby Abshire got Army back to within two on a nice diving goal on a feed by Nichtern with 4:35 left on the clock. Nichtern continued to dominate in the fourth quarter and 32 seconds after Abshire's goal he cut the Loyola lead to one goal with his 26th goal on the season.

The Black Knights had a great chance down one with just over a minute left. Army came out of the timeout with a good look from the left side, but Sam Shafer made his 12th save of the night and closed out the win for the Greyhounds.