05/12/23 - It was a hot and sunny day with temps in the 80s, and hotter on the turf, as the 3rd-seeded Dons of Loyola took on the 6th-seeded Crusaders of St. Paul's. With both teams showing great improvement from a year ago to make the playoffs, it was two classic MIAA programs playing on historic Hargaden Field at Loyola to kick off the MIAA tourney.

Hargaden is one of two stellar stadiums for lacrosse that Loyola gets to call home. Nestled next to a beautiful school building behind one goal, and the perfect-sized stands behind one of the sidelines for a game like this, it was a great site to host a game of this magnitude. Loyola's student section was rocking the whole game and St. Paul's brought a nice crew of their own.

Loyola went up 4-0 early in what looked like the makings for a potential blowout. But St. Paul's regrouped and had the game knotted at 7-7 in the 3rd quarter before Loyola reasserted themselves with a 4-goal run that put them up for good.

The win earns the Dons a trip to the semifinal game against 2nd -seeded Calvert Hall at the Navy-Marine Corp Stadium in Annapolis. They'll get a chance to avenge a 6-5 loss to the Cardinals from their last regular season game of the week before.

Notes:

- Once again, I shot pics in the first half and video in the second.

- Please check out www.proudlacrosse.com to see more vids and photos.

- Most of the video was shot with a Sony FX3 and Sony FE 100-400mm F4.5-5.6 GM OSS lens. The stills and some smaller video clips were shot with a Sony A7iv with both the above lens and also the Sony FE 24-105mm f/4 G OSS lens.

Thanks for watching and reading!

Joe