As snow began to trickle down on the Owl Athletic Complex, Springfield started to render nightmares of a game they played a season ago.
In the Pride’s opening game in 2025, the team fell short to Nazareth by a goal in the final minutes; a game that neither team was ready for, as the conditions read snow, snow and more snow. A slip-and-slide is fun in July, but it’s different when playing lacrosse in early March amongst the depths of New England. Springfield head coach Sean Quirk described Tuesday afternoon’s performance against Keene State as “Gritty.”
“Gritty means being a ChiefDawg, and having a ChiefDawg mentality,” Quirk said. “Being loyal to your teammates, getting down on ground balls, diving for balls. Ian Cote diving for balls on the end line. Reese Whitney just scrapped out there. You have to roll up your sleeves and get dirty, and that’s the Springfield mentality.”
Springfield scrapped its way to a 6-3 victory over Keene State, improving to 2-1 on the season for the first time since 2017, and nine goals combined marked the lowest goal count that Springfield has been a part of since March 10, 2018. The win came in large part to the Pride outscoring the Owls 4-0 in the second half, including 18 caused turnovers forced on Keene State.
The Pride’s 18 caused turnovers are the most in a game since at least 2009. Whitney led the way with four caused turnovers, Chuck Weitzel had three, as Brady Soldo and Bryan Stensrud both had two.
“The first half weather really neutralized the game and you can’t use conditions and you can’t use anything as excuses,” Quirk said. “Our defense was flying around. To give up three goals in any game is super impressive. On offense, we were moving the ball much better. We were making stops on defense, and the guys just found a way.”
Springfield didn’t strike until there was less than three minutes in the first frame, but Sal Posillico went coast-to-coast to tie it up at 1-1. Ryan Berkel knotted things at 2-2 after a big time faceoff win from Dom Savastano, who went 8-for-13 on faceoffs. The Owls led the Pride 3-2 at the half, but things took a turn in the second. Jake Degnan got going early in the third with a low rip through the goalkeeper’s legs, and Stensrud gave Springfield the lead after he caused a turnover ending in a crease dump.
“I thought the ball movement was much better in the second half,” Quirk said. I thought their goalie played really well but we were moving him though. We were getting looks that we would typically get in games and in practice, and guys were shooting the ball much better.”
Weitzel, Gus Oliveira and Zach Rabin locked things down in the second half, allowing just two shots on goal, as Cote saw seven shots all day, saving four. Stensrud got an insurance goal on man-up when he grabbed his own rebound at the doorstep, and Berkel scored 40 seconds later to put the game to rest.
Next up for Springfield is Endicott, which is a homecoming game for Quirk in a sense, as the first year head coach was once at the helm of the Gulls from 1997-2015, and was an admin for even longer.
“I don’t even really mention the name of our opponent,” Quirk said. “That’s the way I’m looking at that game. I was there for 28 years, but I don’t get distracted by hype or anything. I just go into every game dialed in, same expectations, same standard that I have for my players, and we’ll be locked and ready to go.”
The Pride travel to face the Gulls on Friday at 6 p.m.