Detroit 13, Marist 14

Detroit 5-9 (4-2 MAAC)

With a shot at the #1 seed in the MAAC Tournament, the Detroit Titans fell one goal short on the road against Marist. The Titans dug holes for themselves in the 1st and 3rd quarters, and a furious 4th-quarter rally wasn’t enough to earn the comeback.
Before getting into the details, let’s check out the…

Tempo Free

From the box score, your tempo-free breakdown:

Despite the loss, the Titans were the more efficient team on this day, with a very good offensive efficiency mark of .382. The defensive efficiency was the poor number, as Marist hasn’t been a very efficient team this season.

So, even with an efficient day from Marist, Detroit was still the more effective offensive team. What does that mean? The game came down to possessions. The Titans had 4 fewer than the Red Foxes, and that ultimately led to their demise.

As we’ve become accustomed to against decent competition at the X, faceoffs were the story. The Titans won only 39%, and that led to their loss. The faceoffs were particularly bad in the first and third quarters, when the Titans built up deficits.

Notes

As faceoffs were a big part of the sotry of the game, it’s important to note what did and did not work. Brandon Davenport won 12 of 29 draws, while Joe MacLean won 0 of 2. Marist’s Matt Dugan won 18 of 29 attempts.

So, how did Marist have some of the best offensive success of any team that the Titans have faced this year? For starters, they scored on .318 of their shots, and the Titans only caused 8 turnovers on 38 possessions, which may seem impressive, but is actually below their season average. AJ Levell also had a difficult day, saving fewer than haf of the shots on goal.

Offensively, it was the… Tom Masterson Show? The freshman hadn’t scored yet this year, but he potted 3 goals (on just 3 shots) and notched 2 assists for a very impressive outing in his 7th appearance as a Titan. Shayne Adams scored 3 goals, Alex Maini had a goal and 2 assists, and Tim Lehto had 2 goals and an assist.

Adding to UDM’s defensive troubles on the day were penalties. The Titans committed 11 yesterday – more than double their per-game season average. 3 Marist goals were scored on extra-man opportunities.

The loss ends Detroit’s chances at reaching a .500 record prior to the NCAA Tournament. They would have to make a shocking run in the NCAA Tournament to finish over .500 on the season.

Elsewhere

Official site recap. Marist recap.

Up Next

The Titans will be the #3 seed in the MAAC Tournament, where they will have a rematch against Marist on Friday at 8:00pm in Buffalo, NY. The game should be streaming live on the MAAC website, though there’s no indication of whether it’s free. Tournament and individual game previews coming up later this week.