Liverpool Lacrosse 2nds: 10
Warwick Lacrosse 2nds: 3

Saturday saw Warwick lose out to the University of Liverpool Lacrosse team in a landmark second team game. The friendly was the first competitive match that the second team had ever played, but despite this their relative lack of experience was not mirrored in their game play as they proceeded to be very good competition for the home team.

Men’s lacrosse was only introduced to Warwick last year and this year’s introduction of a second team shows the growth and success of the club. Club President Aaron Fox said of the team’s progress ‘I was really impressed by how much the team stepped up their game from training sessions, it looks very promising for the future.’ The quality of the pitch was poor and was exacerbated by the rain, but as the conditions worsened Warwick stepped up their game becoming more and more efficient as the match went on. With a predominantly fresh team with five substitutes, Warwick played well against a physical Liverpool side in spite of their lack of their face-off specialist Abakar Saidov.

The team got off to a poor start in the first quarter, mainly suffering from organisational difficulties and an unfortunate lack of a warm-up. In the opening quarter the team appeared disorganised and had trouble with groundballs and physicality, especially in defence - conceding 4 goals mainly from poor marking of cutters and crease players. These defensive troubles continued into the second quarter, with Liverpool playing well and scoring 4 more goals, largely from the same defensive errors that were present in the first quarter. Poor clearance from defence and disorganised attacking play often lost possession to a well-structured Liverpool team. However, in the closing moments of the first half, Warwick fresher Ben Stothard sent a physical message to the opposition that the Warwick defence were not powerless, clearing out a Liverpool attacker and leaving him lying on the grass.

The beginning of the second half showed that Warwick were still strongly competing for the game. Following a motivational speech from team captain and goalkeeper Jason Nazareth, Warwick started communicating and looked more confident on the ball. This led to a much better structure of both attack and defence resulting in much more possession. A well-structured settle with exceptional ball movement early into the second half allowed midfielder Alex Twiss to blast a high shot from range to make the score 8-1. This clearly had a good impact on team morale and Warwick continued to pick up the pace.

Nazareth, a fresher, excelled himself in the match, executing several good saves, clearing the ball well and rallying his defence with good communication. Twiss scored his second goal of the match following a well-timed pass as he cut through the Liverpool defence. The third quarter also saw a spate of illegal head checks from the Liverpool team, leading to Warwick playing with an extra man for the end of the quarter. Despite being unable to capitalise for many minutes, Warwick scored again in the closing moments of the quarter. With good attacking play coming from Simon Robinson and Shaun Cregeen, Warwick moved the ball quickly around goal resulting in a fast and well timed feed from Twiss allowing Bobby Binns to easily beat the Liverpool ‘keeper.

Following Warwick’s domination of the third quarter during which the home team were unable to score, Liverpool decided to bring on their number 100, a first team player. Warwick kept up the good level of play but conceded early on following an unfortunate error during which Nazareth was checked, resulting in an open goal for the Liverpool attack. After this early setback, Warwick continued to battle well with good support from their captain in goal and despite good defensive play, particularly from Adam Keasey, Liverpool number 100 managed to score a difficult outside shot.

At the final whistle the score was 10-3 and Warwick walked away safe in the knowledge that they had played well in their debut match. Liverpool named Alex Twiss Warwick Man of the Match after a well-deserved effort in midfield. Captain Jason Nazareth said of his team ‘We gave a good account of ourselves during our first match and there is a lot of potential within the squad. With more game experience and practice we will only improve.’