It was a sea of yellow engulfing goalie Tyler Canto in the crease at Johnny Unitas Stadium. Towson celebrated its biggest win in years, a 12-10 win over No. 1 ranked Loyola, wearing the trendy yellow throwback jerseys reminiscent of the early 1990s.
It was the second time this season the Tigers wore the throwback tops — the first being a 17-8 victory over Johns Hopkins. For a Towson team not ranked in the polls to start the season, the upset of the Blue Jays was a major one to start the season and they haven't let up.
Wins over Mount St. Mary’s and Georgetown set up the meeting with No. 1 Loyola at home.
That brought with it a challenge that on one has been able to do at this point in the season — limiting Pat Spencer. The consensus top player in the nation entered the matchup with three consecutive seven-point games over ranked teams, and multiple appearances on SportsCenter’s Top 10 to go with it.
The Towson defense, led by senior standout Zach Goodrich and sophomore sensation Koby Smith, was not going to be intimidated by Spencer’s skill.
“He’s just another player,” Smith said. “We’d play him the same way we’d play everybody else. I play them to the best of my ability.”
The Towson defense brought the physicality, holding Spencer relatively in check for most of the night (one goal and four assists), and goalie Tyler Canto came up with a handful of timely saves to keep the Greyhounds at bay. The victory in front of 2,534 fans marked the first time Towson has knocked off the top-ranked team since an overtime victory over Loyola in 1992.
And in that year, the Tigers rocked the similar jerseys to the ones they wore on Wednesday night.
To get the job done, Towson stuck the same formula that has defined its program under Shawn Nadelen in recent years — physical and imposing defense, strong goalie play and controlling possession through the faceoff.
Coming off a 7-8 season in which multiple players were dismissed from the program, Towson has regrouped and looked the part of its 2016 and 2017 squads that made NCAA tournament runs.
Nadelen said his team didn’t play its best game against Loyola, and that it has work to do. But he’s glad to see his team gelling after four games.
“I’m happy with our progress,” Nadelen said. “Our guys are continuing to improve and continuing to get better. … Are we making the right plays that we’re in position to make? I feel like we are doing that more times than not right now. We have really good pieces fitting together and playing well.”
“It was a typical Loyola-Towson game,” Loyola coach Charlie Toomey said. “We talked about it being a street fight, and then they took some haymakers at us.”
Towson's quartet of Canto, Smith, Woodall and Brendan Sunday (four goals) helped lift Towson, which never trailed despite going almost 24 minutes without scoring in the second and third quarters.
For Canto, the biggest game of his career came in just his fourth start. The third-string goalie in 2018 came up with 14 saves to fuel the victory, but none bigger than the one he made with just under 10 minutes remaining.
Trailing 9-7, Loyola had possession and Chase Scanlan found a wide open Kevin Lindley just to the right of the Towson crease. Lindley caught the pass and faked a shot which elicited a dive from Canto to the right. With Canto on the ground, Lindley flicked a shot that seemed destined for the cage, but Canto, still falling away from the goal, stuck his stick out to make a miraculous save.
“Honestly, I don’t even know what was going through the kid’s head,” Smith said. “I slid and I turned around and all of a sudden Canto is on his butt on the ground, shaking his stick around and the kid is throwing a thousand fakes. It goes straight into Canto’s stick and my mind was just blown. I was like ‘Oh crap.’ I had no clue what was going on and I immediately broke up the field and I was like “Oh, I've got to get out of here.’”
“I was just trying to watch his stick the whole time and try to stay with it,” Canto said of the save. “I knew he had to shoot it. I was already on the ground so I just threw my stick out there and I was lucky enough to get it.”
Lindley, who finished with a game-high six goals to continue his breakout sophomore year, said Canto stopped more than one high-percentage shots off his stick.
“In that fourth quarter I had two opportunities that no doubt should have been a goal,” he said. “He made a good save.”
Canto’s efforts stifled a Loyola offense that was pressing to make a comeback late in the fourth quarter. The Greyhounds were limited with their chances thanks to a strong effort from Woodall, who continued his torrid 2019 season winning 20 of 26 faceoffs to help Towson maintain possession.
He won 10 straight faceoffs in the fourth quarter over a Loyola team that came in with a 54.8 faceoff win percentage. Towson’s lead never reached more than three goals, so possession was key as the minutes ticked down.
Smith’s job on Spencer was just as valuable. The Loyola star had five points, but he scored just one goal on eight shots. Smith, a 6-foot, 205-pound sophomore, who transferred from Navy just before the 2018 season, matched up with the physicality of the 6-foot-3, 205-pound Spencer.
It certainly helped that Smith had familiarity with Spencer. On top of the matchup last season, Smith of Loyola (Md.) battled with Spencer of Boys’ Latin (Md.) in high school.
“He’s a good player,” Spencer said of Smith. “They wanted to slide to him a little bit when I was on that island with him. Overall, I felt like they threw a lot of stuff at us and kept us on our toes the whole night. It was a whole defensive effort.”
According to Nadelen, Smith has taken a step forward to help bolster an already solid Tigers defense.
“He’s a kid that has great athleticism,” Nadelen said. “He’s a playmaker as a defender. He’s the right mentality that you want for a No. 1 cover guy.”
Loyola fell for the first time this season, but it will look to regroup quickly ahead of a Saturday matchup with Patriot League rival Holy Cross. Toomey reflected back on 2016 in the postgame press conference, when the Greyhounds topped the Tigers in an NCAA quarterfinal.
“They’re a tough out. They’re a really good team,” he said. “2016, we were fortunate enough to see them again. That’s all I can hope for right now.”