Pride ready to fight after two losses

by Marc Viquez
Published on June 17, 2002 under Major League Lacrosse (MLL)

The New Jersey Pride are not going to let two losses get in their way of pursuing a second consecutive winning record this season. The Pride opened the 2002 Major League Lacrosse season with a 12-7 victory at home over the Bridgeport Barrage, but have suffered two setbacks with losses to the Baltimore Bayhawks and the Long Island Lizards. The season is still young and there is a lot of room to be made up through the rest of the summer, but Pride Head coach Ted Georgala does not think the two recent losses reflect his team's play.

"This game was a lot closer than the 18-12 score up there I think, and I don't care what anybody else thinks" said a feisty Georgala after a recent home loss to Long Island. "We looked at film after Thursday night and thought we improved on a few areas. We won a few more faceoffs earlier, did a better job helping our defense, but we have to look at it again and see what else is going on late in the game that we have to correct."

In the two losses, New Jersey was outscored in the second half 17-9. In the Baltimore contest, the Pride was leading and against Long Island they were down by just two points.

"We have to spend more time on defense. We're breaking down against certain people. We got them where we want them and then we get impatient allowing them to score goals," added Georgala who likes the fight his team had late in the contest "Guys are still battling to the end and we must have hit the pipes eight times."

In the game at home against the Lizards it seemed that every ball hit the pipes of the goal instead of the white of the net. There were at least eight pings of the pipes that frustrated any scoring chances late in the game. Hubbard was able to double his goal total on the year with six, while only three other Pride players were able to connect, compared to goals scored by six Long Island players.

"We haven't really found our rhythm yet. We got to get more scoring from people," said the Pride's Jesse Hubbard who scored nine goals in the two games. "We just didn't execute our game in the second half. We didn't shoot so well."

The Pride will try to make it 2-2 on the season when they take on the Rochester Rattlers at Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey, PA. The neutral site game will be an away game for the Pride and feature a more traditionally shaped stadium for the game of lacrosse. The contest will help promote the game in Central Pennsylvania and perhaps generate interest in a future expansion team in the area.

Major League Lacrosse Stories from June 17, 2002

• Pride ready to fight after two losses - OSC Original by Marc Viquez
• Barrage Sign Attackman B.J. Prager - Philadelphia Barrage

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