Salisbury streaks
Sea Gulls (22-0) champs again
FOXBOROUGH - Gillette Stadium, in case you forgot, has seen a few winning streaks over the past few years.
A fitting site, then, for undefeated Salisbury (22-0) to claim its fifth Division 3 title in six seasons by beating Cortland State, 19-13, yesterday.
Owners of the three longest winning streaks in NCAA lacrosse history (69, 47 and their current streak, 44 games), the Sea Gulls are 124-2 since 2003. In 20 seasons on the sidelines, coach Jim Berkman is 321-30.
It wasn't a problem that Berkman lost every starter on defense to graduation, including five All-Americans and Division 3's long-stick player of the year. Like another coach who patrols the sidelines at Gillette, Berkman shrugs off the losses and keeps piling up wins.
"This has been a storybook season for us," he said after the game, in which the Sea Gulls jumped to a 7-3 lead after the first quarter and never looked back. "To come back, go undefeated, and win another title replacing all those guys, is a tribute to our program and our coaches."
In front of 24,317 fans, the largest audience to witness a Division 3 title match, Salisbury used pinpoint accuracy, scoring on seven of its first eight shots.
"We had so much intensity going into the game," said senior midfielder Bruce Richardson (five goals). "We wanted to make sure we weren't too pumped up. We came out and we stuck it where we needed to."
Did they ever. After Cortland's Joey Morgan scored in the first minute, Salisbury needed 28 seconds to answer. On a Red Dragons turnover, senior Greg Titus neatly tucked his 54th goal of the season past Cortland goalie Mike Robinson. Then, goals from Mike Von Kamecke and Matt Hickman caused Cortland to try to stop the bleeding via timeout.
It didn't work.
Titus got his second of the day, this time on the man-advantage, to put the Maryland school ahead, 4-1.
After another goal by Morgan, Salisbury responded twofold - first, goalie Nick Fiorentino left his crease to pummel Dragons attacker Kyle Simensky with a thunderous hit. Then, junior midfielder Kylor Berkman scored the first of his five goals, making it 5-2 by walking around the net and stuffing one low.
The top midfield unit of Berkman, Richardson and Von Kamecke combined for 13 of Salisbury's 19 goals.
Cortland's Chris Hannon scored with 1:56 left in the quarter, but Salisbury answered with two goals into the final minute to take a 7-3 lead.
From there, Salisbury kept pouring in the goals - even long-pole defender Ryan Phillips got in the action - and enjoyed stellar netminding from Fiorentino, starting his third collegiate match after the Sea Gulls' starter and backup keepers were suspended late in the season.
Clearly, he was ready for the spotlight, making 14 saves.
"There was a lot of emotion, excitement, nervousness. I didn't want to be the guy who was the reason for the loss. But this is a dream come true," he said, beaming. "National champions."
In the late game, the New York Institute of Technology came back from a 5-2 first-quarter disadvantage to capture the Division 2 national title, 16-11, over Le Moyne.
The Bears (13-1) held the Dolphins (15-2) scoreless for a 17-minute stretch in the middle of the game, and closed out the two-time defending champs by blanking them over the final 14 minutes.
Junior attack Keith Henderson (five goals) was named the game's most outstanding player.
