It took until Sunday — a full month after its scheduled opener — but UMass finally got its season underway.
The Minutemen could not play their first two games, including a Feb. 13 opener against Army, because of a campus-wide pandemic shutdown. But by the time that lifted, the men’s lacrosse team then had a COVID pause it had to navigate.
In all, UMass had five contests postponed (one of them twice) before its 13-9 defeat of Fairfield. Two of those games (against Albany and Hofstra) are scheduled to be made up as midweek contests later this month.
“It was just waiting for everybody to get back together as a group, as a team,” coach Greg Cannella said. “That’s the hardest thing. You can probably go out there with part of the team and have a decent six-on-six practice, but to be able to do the things we want to do in terms of full-field, you have to have a larger number.”
— UMass Men's Lacrosse (@UMassMLacrosse) March 15, 2021
We lead by 1 early in the 3rd
The snow squall arrives from the North
We score 6 of final 9 goals; win.
#GorillaLacrosse
[ Thom Kendall] pic.twitter.com/kh0gzM0gP0
In the interim, Cannella juggled plenty of meetings. With health officials on campus. With other university personnel. And lots of communication with players, some who tested positive and others who wound up in contact tracing. All anyone could do was wait things out.
All of it took place with the backdrop of all 65 of the other Division I teams competing this spring took the field ahead of them.
There was excitement when practices finally resumed, and some players didn’t return until the week before the Fairfield game. And while Cannella wanted the Minutemen to be at their best, he reached a realization that so many other coaches have: In 2021, simply getting on the field is a victory of its own.
Such was the case Sunday, as the Minutemen controlled the second half and got three goals from Chris Connolly to earn a victory.
“There are some things you just have to shake your head at and go, ‘Listen, we’re really happy to be out here, we’re going to go for it and go play as hard as we possibly can,’” Cannella said. “‘We might not be in the best shape or play at the level we want to play at for a consistent amount of time, and hopefully that comes in the first three or four games. Let’s just go out there and be happy we’re here together and being able to do this.’”