Saturday the men's lacrosse team met one of its toughest challenges of the early season and was smacked in the face with a 17-6 loss to Hofstra.

"Our attitude this whole year was that we have a lot of talent and that we're a good lacrosse team and we were expecting to go neck and neck with Hofstra," Ted Peddy said. "We worked really hard for seven weeks to get there, but we just totally let down that one day.

The Lions felt the sting of the powerful Hofstra offense in the first quarter as it dominated, 8-0. The Lions decreased the immense lead as Greg Guarton scored two goals and Peddy, Pete Makover, Paul Fisher and Regan Beck each scored one. Jim Laverty aided with two assists and Chris Lehman had one.

The scoring efforts weren't enough, though, and Hofstra dominated the Lions' defense as it moved the ball and managed to repeatedly take shots. Goaltender Jamie Morse tallied seven saves and J.J. Pearl had five.

"They jumped all over us," Coach Glenn Thiel said. "I give them a lot of credit, they were very good. They ran like deer and moved the ball and just started out like crazy in the first quarter."

The Lions were dominated throughout the game, Thiel said. Hofstra's ability to work the ground balls was one of the many factors that shut down the Lions.

"We didn't react to any ground balls, they dominated every ground ball and that's the name of the game in lacrosse -- if you don't get the ground balls, you don't win," Thiel said. "They did about anything they wanted, we were never in the ball game."

The domination was felt in the Lion offense when it advanced to take shots and were repeatedly shut down by the tough Hofstra defense.

"We didn't get the ball on offense too much and when we did we weren't sticking our shots. Their goalie played really well," Peddy said.

During the five-minute halftime, the Lions had to assess their position in the game and motivate themselves to come back and try to salvage something out of a 12-2 halftime deficit.

Both Thiel and Peddy said the game was an embarrassment to the Lions but that they are ready to fight on to turn the 1-2 season around. The Lions held practice yesterday evening and worked on those mistakes from Saturday's game.

"Everybody was running really hard and hustling and we're on the road to beating Villanova this weekend -- that's our big game," Peddy said.