Coming off a wrenching overtime loss to Delaware and down two regular starters on offense, Towson needed a spark to find a way past Loyola on Saturday.

Junior Tim Montgomery was happy to deliver.

The attackman came off the bench with a three-goal effort, including the overtime game-winner, in a 7-6 victory. That followed a one-goal, one-assist showing at Delaware on March 20, the first multi-point game of his career.

“You could feel his confidence continue to build over the past couple weeks,” Towson coach Shawn Nadelen said. “He’s a guy who was kind of in a midfield role early on in the season and wasn’t playing well and kind of got demoted and worked his way back up. He’s a resilient kid, and he’s a kid we knew we had to lean on a little bit with some of those other guys out.”

The door opened for Montgomery in part because attackman Brody McLean and midfielder Casey Wasserman were both out for the Tigers (3-5), who visit Hofstra on Saturday. Montgomery was also the rare player to enjoy a good shooting day in the grind-it-out meeting with Towson’s neighborhood rival; he was 3 of 7, while everyone else combined to connect on 10 of 65 attempts.

“I just appreciate the opportunity that coach has given me,” Montgomery said. “The past couple weeks, we’ve had good weeks of practice, and my teammates have always been by my side, and I kept my head up no matter what.”

Loyola’s search for speed

One of the weekend’s more unexpected results was Loyola’s 7-6 overtime loss at Towson, and the way it unfolded has to be at least somewhat worrisome for the Greyhounds and their prospects for the season.

A week after dropping 24 goals on Bucknell, Loyola found itself in an uncharacteristic slog. Some of that was a function of Towson’s persistent defense, but the Greyhounds (4-3) had little to show for their unsettled game besides faceoff man Bailey Savio’s goal late in the fourth quarter to force overtime.

“I thought there were a couple times where we got them in a hung situation offensively and the ball just died at X,” coach Charley Toomey said. “It allowed them to get organized defensively. We played the slowest game of lacrosse I’ve seen us play in a long time, and that is really, really disappointing.”

Senior attackman Kevin Lindley’s 23-game goal streak came to an end, in large part because Towson was content to shut him off. It was an understandable choice against a player who entered the game shooting 46.8 percent.

But rather than create opportunities for others, Loyola was stagnant nearly all day and racked up seven shot clock violations. And while there are some opportunities for quality victories still looming, including Saturday’s visit to undefeated Navy, the Greyhounds’ margin for error in seeking an NCAA tournament at-large berth has narrowed considerably.

Toomey knows one thing for sure: Loyola can’t get bogged down again like it was Saturday.

“We were way too slow,” Toomey said. “I’ll take mistakes playing fast. I don’t like the mistakes of, ‘We let a shot clock get down to about 17 and we start attacking,’ and the next thing you know, you’re rolling it to the end line. That’s not how we want to play.”

NUMBERS OF NOTE

1

NJIT earned the first conference victory in program history on Saturday with a 14-10 defeat of UMass Lowell. Owen Corry had five goals and two assists for the Highlanders (1-5, 1-3 America East), who competed as an independent from 2015-19 and were scheduled to play a Northeast Conference schedule last season prior to the pandemic. NJIT joined the America East as an all-sports member last summer.

5

TD Ierlan recorded his fifth unblemished game in his Denver debut Saturday, winning all 14 of his faceoff attempts in a 19-11 defeat of Providence. Ierlan was also perfect against Cornell (24-for-24 in 2018), Stony Brook (24-for-24 in 2018), Vermont (20-for-20 in 2018) and Harvard (26-for-26 in 2019).

9-0

Duke is 9-0 for the first time since 2005, when it won its first 11 games. The Blue Devils would go on to finish 17-3 that season with an appearance in the national title game.

43

Drexel scored 43 goals in its two victories last week — a 24-8 rout of Lafayette and a 19-13 defeat of Robert Morris. The Dragons (3-2) have scored 19 goals in back-to-back games for the first time since at least 2002.