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Eagles Soar Over Bama in Season Opener

Jan. 28, 2007

TUSCALOOSA, AL Fraternity rush week at Emory tends to make people aware of what Greek colors and letters they have chosen and how they wish to continue their brotherhood's legacy. Well, when game time came around on Sunday, members of the Eagles Men's Lacrosse team were only concerned about showing loyalty to the colors of blue and gold on their uniforms. They would do this in a 14-3 win over the Crimson Tide of Alabama.

Alabama, the only Division 1A school in the SELC B division, went winless in 2006 and started off their 2007 on Saturday with a 14-5 loss to Furman. If Bama thought they were going to snap their losing streak and redeem themselves against the Eagles, they were mistaken. In both 2005 and 2006, Emory managed to score at least 20 goals in each game against the Tide so Alabama was poised to deliver a better showing on their home turf. While Bama showed encouraging signs of improvement, Emory went on to win easily 14-3. 

Although the Eagles took an early penalty, they still managed to get on the board first during the man down situation. After forcing a turnover off of Alabama's extra man unit, Evan Cropper (New York, NY/Trinity) made his presence felt as he ran the ball to midfield to hit David Franklin (Jericho, NY/Jericho - Drew) with a pass. Franklin ran the ball into the box on a fast break, drawing the point defender, and finding Robert Nugent (River Forest, IL/St. Ignatius) wide open for a layup goal. Nugent, a senior veteran scorer, was far from done after making the score 1-0. "Nugs" would go on to find the back of the net six more times for a career day performance of seven goals. Ironically enough, Nugent scored seven times when Emory matched up against Alabama in 2005.

After winning the first quarter 4-0 with scores from Curt Simmons (Wilmington, DE/Tantall), a career first for freshman, Reid Curry (Shaker Heights, OH/Shaker Heights), and Nugent's second goal, Coach Reed began to rest his starters and evened out the playing time. The Tide gave Emory a quick scare when they scored twice in the second quarter but the Eagles notched three goals of their own ending the half with the score, 7-2 in favor of the Birds.

Alabama would score again in the third quarter but from that point on to the end of the game Emory went on an unanswered seven goal run to seal the victory. Nugent scored three times in the second half as David Morrison (Greenwich,CT/Greenwich), Paul Goleb (Rockford, MD/Walter Johnson), Alex Leung (Short Hills, NJ/Millburn), and Adam Smith (Memphis, TN/White Station) each tallied once to end the scoring for the Eagles at 14. Goleb, who played soccer for Emory last year was happy to score in his college lacrosse debut, while freshman, Adam Smith got a lot of attention when was scored on the crease off of a no-look, behind the back shuffle pass dished off by Daniel Goetzel (Bethesda, MD/Winston Churchill).

On the defensive side of the field things got sloppy at times but in the end things were held down fine. Junior, Ryan Covert (St. Louis, MO/Chaminade) was simply a beast as the 2006 All-American recognized the overall weakness of the Alabama attackers and never let a single one of them rest. On every touch of the ball Covert was in the face of whichever man he was guarding, beating them down and stripping them of the ball to force numerous turnovers.

When sophomore, Samuel Adams announced he would not be playing anymore at the beginning of the semester, it was senior, Andrew Dunn (Needham, MA/Needham), and sophomore, David Laub (Pine Brook, NJ/Montville) who were left to defend between the pipes. Dunn got the starting nod as the two ultimately went on to split time. However, it was young Laub's textbook style of play was really shutting down the opposing offense.

This coming Superbowl weekend, Emory is in action twice. The Eagles start off the weekend taking on the Citadel in another conference match-up at home on Saturday at 2 PM; last season Emory ten-goaled the Bulldogs 19-9. On Sunday the Eagles will travel to Chattanooga, Tennessee to play none other then UT-Chattanooga in a 1 pm contest. To open their fall season this past year, Emory took down the Mocs 21-3 at home in Atlanta.