Tuesdays are for the underdogs.
After much of the first three weeks of the NCAA Division I men’s lacrosse season went according to script, Villanova and Marist delivered a shock to the system Tuesday, upsetting a pair of top-10 teams.
The Wildcats, who fell out of the Nike/US Lacrosse Top 20 after season-opening losses to No. 1 Penn State and No. 3 Yale, withstood another furious Maryland rally to defeat the fourth-ranked Terps 13-12 in Villanova, Pa.
Maryland (3-1) lived dangerously in wins over Richmond and Penn, going to double overtime against the Spiders after erasing a five-goal deficit and eking past the Quakers with a game-ending eight-goal run.
Which is why no one counted out the Terps when Villanova took a five-goal lead on Connor Kirst’s third goal with 8:38 remaining. Maryland climbed back to within one on a man-up tally by Logan Wisnauskas with 38 seconds left. The Terps had a chance to tie it on the last possession, but Bubba Fairman made an errant pass and the Wildcats (1-2) held on for their second-ever win over Maryland.
As it turned out, that might have only been the second-most surprising result Tuesday.
Army’s early-season ascent hit an unexpected snag in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., where the seventh-ranked Black Knights were blown out by unranked Marist 17-9.
Army (3-1) was the talk of college lacrosse after steamrolling its first three opponents by a combined score of 51-9, including lopsided wins over nationally ranked UMass (17-4) and Rutgers (15-4).
But the Red Foxes (2-1) shut out the Black Knights for nearly 30 minutes and stunned the previously impenetrable Army defense with an eight-goal run. The Black Knights never recovered.
Marist’s swagger was especially evident when Jake Weinman scored a behind-the-back goal early in the second quarter and his teammates on the bench swarmed him to celebrate.
The Red Foxes, reigning champions of the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, never looked back and procured their first win over a nationally ranked opponent in three years. Army, also ranked No. 7 in the USILA coaches poll, is the highest-ranked opponent Marist has ever defeated. Its previous biggest upset was a 10-9 overtime triumph against then-No. 8 Stony Brook in 2016.
Jamison Embury led the onslaught with four goals and three assists. The Red Foxes also benefited from solid efforts at the faceoff dot by Peyton Smith (17-for-28) and in goal by Jake MacGregor (16 saves).