From Todd Carton
The 2017 Men’s Lacrosse National Champion Maryland Terrapins receive four honors Thursday night in Annapolis. The first two came before the MLL game between the Chesapeake Bayhawks and the Florida Launch. First, The Touchdown Club of Annapolis honored them as the collegiate team of the year. Then members of the 2017 squad had the chance to share Maryland’s “Be the Best” rallying cry with members of the Terrapins’ 1975 championship squad.
The third honor came at halftime when the team and staff, including the three Terps currently on the Bayhawks roster, came to the field with the National Championship Trophy much to the delight of the 4,420 in attendance.
The final honor came from the Bayhawks themselves as they home team handed Florida an 18-10 defeat to improve to 5-6 on the season. The game was a back and forth affair until, with nine minutes to play in the second quarter and the game tied at six, Florida launched an errant pass that led to a rare pole to pole two point goal as C.J. Costabile found fellow defender and 2011 Maryland graduate Brian Farrell who canned his long distance shot.
That play ignited a 6-0 Chesapeake blitz to close the half. In addition to Farrell’s score, Lyle Thompson scored twice in a 30 second span, Jake Froccaro scored his second of the night and rookie sensation Josh Byrne scored the fourth of his five goals. Byrne now leads the team in goals with 24 and is second in points having played just 6 of the Bayhawks11 games.
Florida had cut the lead to 14-9 midway through the fourth quarter when Chesapeake’s long poles struck again. The first long stick midfielder to score was Maryland alum Jesse Bernhardt. Just 9 seconds later, Costabile picked up a ground ball off a faceoff and tickled the twine to effectively seal the win.
Niko Amato played all 60 minutes in goal for the Bayhawks finishing the night with nine saves. Chesapeake returns to action Saturday with a game at Atlanta and will close out the regular season at home on August 6 when they host league leading Denver.
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