NOVA's Sam Stack ends up at the bottom of the stack in a scramble for the ball in the fourth quarter of the April 11 lacrosse game against Howard Community College. Photo by: Arch Scurlock

By Arch Scurlock
Sports Columnist

The men’s lacrosse team is having a tough season so far under first year coach Anthony LePore, winning only one of eight contests.

In their latest game, the Northern Virginia Community College lacrosse team traveled to Columbia, Md., to play the Howard County Community College Dragons on April 11 in a match that looked like NOVA could have a chance of winning.

The afternoon was alternately sunny, windy, cold, rainy and even had a few minutes of sleet. And NOVA, after falling behind early in the first period 2-0, stormed back with goals by Miles Herbst, Garrett Nealon and Ricky Sinclair to lead at the end of the first quarter, 3-2, despite being outshot 11-6.

The second period saw Howard dominate as they limited NOVA to just a few shots while making four goals themselves to lead 6-3 at halftime.

NOVA's Garrett Nealon holds the ball away from the Howard Community College defender in the first quarter of the April 11 lacrosse game. Photo by Arch Scurlock

In the third period, NOVA kept up with Howard as each team scored three, though NOVA was again outshot.

Aaron Paul, David Rosenberger and Ryan Ningard scored for NOVA. Trailing 9-6 entering the final period, NOVA was plagued by fouling, and Howard took advantage by scoring six unanswered points, many when a player up, turning the match into a rout and winning 15-6.

With the loss, NOVA dropped to 1-7 for the year while Howard improved to 3-5.

In NOVA’s first game of the year, they traveled to Essex, Md., to play the nationally ranked Community College of Baltimore County-Essex on Feb. 25. NOVA lost 19-4. Two weeks later on March 10, NOVA went to Bel Air, Md., and lost to the ASA College (N.Y.) Avengers 15-9.

The next day NOVA went to Dover, Del., and lost a close match 11-9 to the Delaware Tech & Community College Hawks.
NOVA finally played its first home match on March 15 at George Mason University and came away with its first win of the year, beating the winless County College of Morris (N.J.) Titans 10-6.

NOVA's Ryan Ningard fires a shot at the goal in the fourth quarter of the April lacrosse game with Howard Community College. Photo by Arch Scurlock

Next on the schedule was a trip to Catonsville, Md., to play the Community College of Baltimore County-Catonsville Cardinals. NOVA went away with a 17-6 loss.

NOVA’s second home match was on March 31, again at GMU against Harford (Md.) Community College. Both teams got lots of extra practice as no referees showed up for the match. Finally, after about an hour, some referees were cajoled into arriving to judge a 10-5 loss by NOVA.

For its next match, NOVA traveled to Owings Mill, Md., on April 6 and perhaps wished that the referees had not shown up to that one since the team got pummeled 17-1 by the unbeaten Stevenson (Md.) University JV, dropping its record to 1-6.

NOVA plays its final three games in April, two of which will be on home fields at West Potomac High School and then Westfield High School. It appears that NOVA will have a decent chance for victories in at least two of the matches.

By: Arch Scurlock

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