By Brittany Burke

Six home games to begin the season, means the CCSU men’s club lacrosse team has no time to ease into the second half of the 2010-2011 season.

Coming off an average year of 5-4, the Blue Devils enter the spring season with two goals in mind; to remain undefeated and to win the title.

“Men’s club won the title three years ago, one year before my freshman year, and ever since I’ve been on the team, I’ve been dying to get my hand on the trophy myself,” said Conrad Meurice. “Out of the three years I’ve been at Central, I think our team this year has the most potential of all three years so far, to make a big name for Central men’s lacrosse club definitely.”

While the aspiration of winning the title is still attainable, this early in the season, the Blue Devils dropped its first game at home Saturday against the University of Rhode Island Division I club team, 10-6.

The team managed to get off on the right foot in its opening game of the 2011 season, against the University of New Haven Chargers. The Blue Devils chose to use the 14-6 win over the Chargers as an indicator game for the rest of the season. CCSU, confident that they would be able to beat UNH used the match up to expose weaknesses, and get players from the entire roster onto the field.

“There’s two things that you kind of look for. People pay to play, so you want everyone to get some time, but at the same time people want to win no matter what,” said Head Coach Philip Orzech. “So I think what we’re trying to do, is get a good rotation so we know who the key people are to go to when we have to go to them, and yet have everybody fill a certain role on the team for certain spots, and I think we did that a lot against UNH.”

While CCSU managed to beat UNH handedly, it did so with men down due to penalties and without scoring in the fourth quarter, allowing the Chargers to score four unanswered points.

“In that fourth quarter, actually in the entire second half, we knew we were better than those guys,” said Club President, Greg Lokitis. “We were running hip to hip with all their players, we were more athletic, definitely better lacrosse players, without doubt, but we were so eager to strip the ball from them and run it down to get another goal, that we kept getting penalties, and it was really hurting us.”

CCSU had a quick turnaround following the win against UNH with a win over Southern Connecticut, 12-6, before falling to URI.

Aside from the three home games to begin the regular season, the lacrosse club has already had to fight through some minor adversities.

In spite of playing on Arute Field the team hasn’t been able to fully practice on the field. Instead it has been forced to use the bubble, which is smaller than the regulation field. The team was also only able to get to time in the bubble Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, whereas now that the season has starter the team is able to practice every day, which the players use to their advantage.

To coincide with practicing restraints, the Blue Devils have had to face obstacles amongst the roster as well. The team’s leading scorer from the year before has since graduated and its leading defender, John Frobel, is out with a torn ACL and MCL.

However, new players added to the roster have added depth to the lines, which the team plans to use to its advantage in games against more talented teams.

“Our two starting lines for attack, midi, and defense are all excellent players, without a doubt in my mind,” said Meurice. “We’re just a lot more [of] well rounded as a team this year, than we were last year. Last year, we had the leading scorer on one line, but that’s only one person. So this year we have six to eight people making a difference rather than one, which in my eyes is a lot better and we can use that to our advantage a lot more.”

With new names added to the roster comes new team chemistry. CCSU’s club team has been practicing and working to come together since last fall, practicing and running scrimmages.

With the game against UNH in the past the Blue Devils are looking forward to the Friday home game against Southern Connecticut, as well as the Division I University of Rhode Island club team. A strong roster of 25 players gives the Blue Devils confidence entering in to the season, but the team realizes that it has to get off to a fast start if it wants to have a winning record.

CCSU takes on the United States Coast Guard on Wed. March 16 on Arute Field at 8 p.m.