POTSDAM, N.Y. – The #6/8 Union College men's lacrosse team struggled to generate offense in a Liberty League matchup against Clarkson University on Saturday afternoon, falling to the Golden Knights by a 9-8 score at Hantz Field.
 
First-year Emmett Lyne led the team with a game-high five points, scoring three goals with two assists. Junior Zach Davis added three goals of his own and classmate Peter Kip scored once with two assists for a three-point day. However, Union recorded only 26 shots on the afternoon in suffering back-to-back regular-season losses for the first time since 2018.
 
The visitors were outshot by a 15-5 margin in the opening quarter, but junior Dan Donahue came up big with seven stops to keep his team in the game early. After Clarkson got on the board first, Lyne took a feed from junior Jake Mabardy and scored with 39 seconds left to knot the score at one.
 
Clarkson scored three straight goals to start the second quarter, the last coming from Matt Reilly with 3:01 on the clock. But Union snatched momentum right back, getting a goal from Lyne with 69 seconds left and another from Davis 48 seconds later to head into halftime down 4-3. That momentum carried over into the third, when Lyne scored his third of the day and junior Justin Greene scored on the man-up to give Union its first lead at 5-4 with 4:32 left. However, the Golden Knights went into the fourth with the advantage thanks to a pair of late tallies.
 
Another man-up goal put Clarkson ahead by a 7-5 score early in the fourth frame. Davis and Kip responded to knot the score at seven at the midway point of the final stanza, but the Golden Knights tacked on two more to take a 9-7 lead with 2:30 left. Davis gave Union life by scoring with 33 seconds left and junior Matthew Paolatto won the subsequent faceoff to set up one final possession, but the visitors could not get a shot off to suffer the defeat.
 
Donahue kept Union in the game by making 14 saves, as Union was outshot by a 41-26 margin.
 
Union will return to action next Saturday, when the team welcomes Rochester Institute of Technology to Frank Bailey Field for a national championship rematch beginning at 1 p.m.