By Mike Morton
Saturday was one of mixed emotions for the St. John’s men’s lacrosse team.
That afternoon, the Red Storm defeated Marquette 15-10 to give them their highest win total since the program’s reinstatement in 2005.
But just hours after their victory, they watched Georgetown eliminate them from the Big East Championship tournament when the Hoyas defeated Rutgers 15-7.
The win gave Georgetown (6-8, 3-3) an identical conference record to St. John’s (9-4, 3-3), but an April 6 victory over the Red Storm gave the Hoyas the tiebreaker to earn the final spot. St. John’s lost in last year’s title game.
Earlier in the day, St. John’s delivered a strong performance against the Golden Eagles (5-7) despite its future being out of its hands. The Red Storm victory marked just the second time in the school’s history that they reached nine wins. Doing it on Senior Day only made it sweeter.
“It was really fitting for this class,” seventh-year Coach Jason Miller said. “They’ve dealt with a ton of adversity. They’ve never stopped fighting. This was an unbelievable way to send them off.”
Senior goalie Jeff Lowman embodied his coach’s feelings in his performance. He allowed just three goals in the second half, collecting eight of his 14 total saves, after having an inconsistent start to the game.
“We weren’t giving them as many second chances, so it helped out a lot,” he said.
St. John’s struggled to contain Marquette’s Connor Bernal in the opening minutes. The midfielder scored all three of his goals for the game in the first quarter to lead the Golden Eagles to an early 3-2 lead.
The Red Storm rebounded in the second quarter, however, and reeled off six straight goals to give them an 8-3 lead that they would never look back from.
McArdle, the second leading total points scorer in college lacrosse, delivered four goals for St. John’s, including three in the second half. On Friday, McArdle was named one of the 25 finalists for the Tewaaraton Award, which is given to the nation’s top player.
“That’s awesome [to be nominated],” he said. “All the hard work throughout the season and throughout the years with everyone pushing me hard paid off.”
Keith Switzer also scored four goals for the Red Storm.
The two juniors delivered strong performances despite the thought of the Rutgers and Georgetown game in the back of their minds. Miller stressed all week throughout practice to not worry about what you can’t control, and instead excel in what you can, he said.
“We wanted to have our best game today,” McArdle said. “We were stressing that the whole week in practice that we wanted to have the best game this week so that next week if we’re playing we can come out there and really show it.”
Unfortunately for him, he will not get that chance. That doesn’t stop McArdle from viewing this season as a success after picking up wins over top programs like Notre Dame and Hofstra, though.
“Nine wins is the most since we’ve been reinstated,” McArdle said. “There was a lot of positives this season, so making the playoffs isn’t going to define this season.”
