The St. Paul Falcons recorded their first win of the season Tuesday after defeating Litchfield Co-op 17-7 in their home-opener.
The Falcons were coming off a loss in their season-opener after falling to Holy Cross 16-8. With the Falcons seeking to rebound in a big way, St. Paul got right after it during their matchup with Litchfield.
The Falcons scored often and early and refused to allow Litchfield to get back into the game.
Falcon’s Erik Suzio said it was good to come out and get a win after falling to Holy Cross. He said there’s a lot of things that the team needs to work on, but it’s a good win for them to build off of.
“We let up seven goals and we like to keep teams under five,” Suzio said. “That’s a lofty goal for such a young team but I think we have some athletes that are capable of doing it. We have a lot of first year guys and they're playing pretty well and picking it up fast.”
Suzio said the team was also much more efficient in their second game compared to Holy Cross.
Early in the season the Falcons have already been a team that has had to struggle to get through injuries. St. Paul coach Byron Catroppa said with such a young team and their recent struggles with injuries, it was a good sight to see them play well against Litchfield.
He said coming off the loss to Holy Cross he liked the team camaraderie.
“The team all came together and they relied on each other,” Catroppa said. “Our motto is BOOM, brothers on one mission, and that really came into effect there.”
Despite the home-opening victory, Catroppa said the team missed a lot of ground balls. He said the good and bad thing is that the team is young, but they just need to continue to gain experience and build their confidence.
Catroppa added that on the positive side the team won nearly 80 percent of their face-offs and with only one senior on the defensive side, the team managed to defend well.
“It’s one play at a time,” he said. “We always tell the guys in the first five minutes of the quarter no matter if we’re up or down just play Falcon Lacrosse and have that BOOM mentality. We just have to continue to grind.”
