Salisbury

Salisbury's men's lacrosse team held St.Mary's to one goal per quarter Wednesday and the offense racked up the points in a 16-4 victory. Kyle Quist led the Sea Gulls (16-0, 8-0 Capital Athletic Conference) with four goals. Sam Bradman and Erik Krum each had three goals for Salisbury, who used an 8-0 run over the first two quarters to put distance between themselves and the Seahawks (9-5, 6-2). Stevenson 17, Frostburg State 4: The host Mustangs (13-3, 7-1 CAC) led 9-1 after the first quarter.

Last week, coach Jeff Shirk had said that he wanted to see how competitive Washington would be in Saturday's road contest at top-ranked Salisbury. He got his answer as the Shoremen fell heavily, 17-5, in the latest installment of the War on the Shore series. The final score didn't bother Shirk as much as how it developed. “I learned that we still have a group that starts slow sometimes, and that's what happened with Salisbury,” he said Tuesday. “We wanted to start fast.

The major difference between Division III powers Salisbury and Stevenson is that the Sea Gulls know how to finish and win big games. Sea Gulls senior attackman Matt Cannone scored cutting across the crease on a over the shoulder feed from junior midfielder Ryan Clarke with 11.7 seconds remaining in the game to give top-ranked Salisbury an 11-10 victory over No. 4 Stevenson on Saturday night. It was a tense and extremely competitive night at Mustangs Stadium, and the crowd of nearly 2,000 watched as Salisbury scored the game's final three goals in the last 3:17 . Cannone pulled the Sea Gulls (15-0 overall, 7-0 Capital Athletic Association)

After a shocking 1-2 start, Salisbury has strung together five consecutive wins and risen to No. 7 in the latest United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association poll. A good deal of the 10-time national champion's reversal can be traced to the play of the defense. Over that span, opponents have scored just 19 goals, which averages out to just 3.8 goals per game. Widener, which averages 10.2 goals, was limited to five in a two-goal loss on Feb. 23. No. 10 Gettysburg, which averages 11.2 goals, was held to five in a three-goal setback on March 2. And Ohio Wesleyan, which averages 10.7 goals, was contained to three in a one-goal loss last Sunday.

With nine national championships in 13 attempts, Salisbury's run of postseason success is eclipsed only by Hobart's record of 13 NCAA titles in 14 tournament final appearances. Sunday's title contest against SUNY-Cortland will be the third consecutive year in which the Sea Gulls have reached the NCAA championship game, but just getting there is not enough for a few players. “We all know what it takes,” senior midfielder Sam Bradman said. “We know it's not anything if we just make it there.

No. 17 Washington bounced back from Saturday's 13-11 loss to No. 13 Gettysburg with a 9-5 victory over another Centennial Conference foe in Swarthmore Wednesday night. But coach Jeff Shirk wasn't entirely pleased with the Shoremen's performance. “To be honest with you, I was just happy to get through last night and start to focus on Salisbury,” he said Thursday morning, referring to another installment of the War on the Shore series this Saturday. “We don't have a game left on the schedule that isn't really meaningful.

Expectations are as high as they have ever been for Johns Hopkins and Salisbury heading into the Division III football season. Meanwhile, the other programs around the state - Stevenson, McDaniel and Frostburg - are putting together the building blocks in hopes of starting their own postseason runs. Salisbury enters the season ranked No. 7 nationally with one of the most difficult schedules in Division III. Johns Hopkins was picked to win the Centennial Conference for the eighth time in 11 years and is coming off a season where it hosted an NCAA playoff game for the first time.

Sam Bradman scored the last two Salisbury goals, including the game-winner with 15.7 seconds left in overtime, as the Sea Gulls, ranked third in Division III, upset top-ranked Gettysburg, 11-10, Saturday. Bradman (four goals) gave Salisbury (10-0) a 10-8 lead with 8:18 left in the game. The host Bullets (9-1) answered by scoring twice in the last 4:29, including Kyle McGrath's game-tying goal with 39 seconds left to force the overtime. Shawn Zordani found Bradman just inside the restraining box. Bradman took two steps and his right-handed shot landed in the bottom left corner of the goal, his second game-winning goal of the season.

Jim Berkman laughed when asked if he sensed any relief from his players after Salisbury defeated Widener, 7-5, on Saturday. But the Sea Gulls coach conceded that getting a victory after back-to-back losses to No. 9 Lynchburg and unranked Washington & Lee provided the reigning national champion with some much-needed confidence. “We played awful good on defense,” Berkman said Monday morning. “We held them down. We should've had more goals than seven though based on what I saw on film.

If top-ranked Salisbury was supposed to stumble without head coach Jim Berkman, someone forgot to tell the players. The nine-time reigning national champion Sea Gulls improved to 8-0 with Wednesday's 13-3 rout of Washington & Lee. Defensive coordinator Ben Sandlin, who served as interim coach, said the players looked unaffected by the absence of Berkman, who experienced heart troubles while working out this past Sunday. “We just tried to keep everything as normal as possible as far as the pregame and who does what and who goes where,” Sandlin said Thursday.