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Sports

UMBC Men's Lacrosse on Three-Game Winning Streak

The Retrievers have won three straight, beginning with an uplifting, one-goal victory over Towson two weeks ago, and are on the verge of salvaging a left-for-dead season.

Exactly one month ago, the UMBC men's lacrosse team was left to lick its wounds after back-t0-back blowout losses to No. 3 Johns Hopkins and No. 4 Maryland.

At 1-4, with starting goalkeeper Brian McCullough injured and their offense unable to create any kind of quick scoring opportunities, the Retrievers appeared set to spiral downward into the program's second consecutive losing season.

But something happened on the way to the America East Conference's cellar: The Retrievers started winning.

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Though Albany (4-8, 0-3 AEC) may be nowhere near the caliber of team the Blue Jays and the Terrapins are, UMBC's 13-9 road win over the Great Danes on April 16 moved the Retrievers to 4-1 since March 18, a stretch that includes three conference games and one non-conference thriller, a 10-9 win over local rival Towson.

The Tigers were coming off a game the weekend before in which they had given No. 8 Hofstra all it could handle.

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Now back at .500 for the season, UMBC (5-5, 2-1) faces Vermont (6-6, 1-2) at UMBC Stadium on Saturday with the chance to at least keep pace with second-place Hartford (8-5, 2-1), which has Binghamton (5-7, 1-2) next on its schedule.

A key to the Retriever resurgence has been young attackman Scott Jones. The Canadian sophomore scored five goals in the win over Albany, has taken over the team lead in goals (17) and risen to second in total points (23) since moving to attack against Maryland.

Jones broke out in that game, scoring three times against the Terrapins, and prompting UMBC coach Don Zimmerman to declare Jones would be staying at attack this season.

Better than 71 percent of Jones' shots this season have been on goal, far and away the best percentage on the team.

Sophomore Dave Brown has been impressive lately, too, as the midfielder tallied five assists to go along with a goal against Albany. Versus Binghamton the weekend before, Brown scored three goals and had an assist, too.

A team that struggled to overcome its youthful inexperience early in the season appears to be finding its legs in April.

Quote of the Week

"I certainly felt weird about it. It's hard having that in the middle of our conference." —UMBC women's lacrosse midfielder Alicia Krause, who scored three goals in a .

Line of the Week

5 goals on 7 shots, 2 ground balls—UMBC men's lacrosse attackman Scott Jones, who helped the Retrievers win a 13-9 game over Albany.

Top Tweet

"WLAX: #UMBC clinches a spot in the @AmericaEast Tournament with its 9-8 win over Binghamton!" —@UMBCAthletics following the women's lacrosse team's tournament-clinching win.

For the Record

With games over and the final numbers tallied, UMBC women's basketball guard Michelle Kurowski finished sixth in the NCAA by sinking 89.4 percent of her free throws, the third-best mark in America East Conference history and a Retrievers basketball record.

Player to Watch

CCBC softball center fielder Megan Smith, who was named the Maryland Junior College Athletic Conference's student athlete of the month in March after hitting .545 with 18 RBI, 15 runs scored, three doubles, three triples and a home run in 18 games.

Game to Watch

Bummed over the Orioles' offensive woes? Catch the UMBC softball team, which went into the weekend leading the America East Conference in batting average (.293), on-base percentage (.384), runs scored (187), hits (275), doubles (53), home runs (31), total bases (427) and walks (129).

The Retrievers play the third game in a series versus Binghamton today at 1:30 p.m. at UMBC Softball Stadium.

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