CLEVELAND, Ohio – Fresh of his second straight ASUN Offensive Player of the Week honor, John Alie started making his case for a third consecutive award by tying a program record with six goals and setting a career high with eight points Tuesday at Cleveland State.
 
Despite the performance by their captain midfielder, the Knights fell 16-10 to their former ASUN conference mates.
 
"Today was frustrating because I really do feel like we are on the right path and just were not able to achieve the results we were hoping for today," said Bellarmine head coach Andrew Whitley. "Our inexperience got exposed at times and we are often one play away from stringing together really good lacrosse both offensively and defensively."
 
"Good teams will only need that one mistake to take advantage and to Cleveland State's credit they took advantage of our mistakes," he added.
 
On the plus side, Alie's total of eight points on six goals and two assists, both matching his previous career highs, brought him one point shy of the program record nine points achieved twice by Kyle Playsted. Alie's performance also marked the 11th time a Knight had scored six goals in a game and first since he did it last April 10 of last year against Robert Morris.
 
"John was tremendous today," Whitley said of the Aurora, Colo., native. "He is such an impactful player and competitor and is doing everything he can to help have opportunities to score."
 
Alie got thing started early, breaking the seal with a goal barely two minutes into the game, but CSU responded with four straight scores to take a 4-1 lead. Alie would add two more scores in the first quarter for an early hat trick as the Knights trailed 4-3 after one.
 
CSU would find the back of the cage four times in the second quarter once again as the Knights got a fourth goal from Alie plus one from Ezra Moore.
 
Bellarmine trailed 8-5 at the half, but came out of the break with three straight goals in less than three minutes to tie the game at eight.
 
"The good version of us continues to be very good," Whitley said. "How we responded coming out of half time was a terrific example of that."
 
The Vikings, however, would outscore the Knights 6-1 during the rest of the period. CSU won 7 of 11 faceoffs and outshot Bellarmine 15-5 in the third.
 
The Vikings would tack on two more scores in the fourth, while Alie added his sixth goal to complete the scoring with CSU winning by a 16-10 final.
 
"We still are struggling to play consistently for a full 60 minutes," said Whitley. "We're a little bit late on slides at times defensively and there are too many untimely turnovers at key moments on offense."
 
"Our undoing on inflection point plays is lack of poise not effort," he added.
 
Moore finished with two goals and an assist and Michael Blaymires handed out a career-high three assists. The remaining two Knights goals were scored by Joe Alie and Cole Messick, who won a faceoff and took it right down the middle and fired it in for a score just 10 seconds after Joe Alie's goal.
 
Xander Johnson led the way for the Vikings with eight goals. Amiri Austin and Jacob Lubrant each netted a pair, Austin with two assists and Lubrant with three. Alex Van Voorhis finished with a game-high four assists.
 
Nolan Hudnut recorded 13 saves for a .448 save percentage while his counterpart, CSU keeper Justin Dalum saved 12 of 22 Bellarmine shots on goal for a .545 save percentage.
 
"One of the things I'm really pleased with this group is our consistent effort and compete level all over the field," Whitley said. "Our lack of poise manifests itself in physical errors and forced plays so those are things we can definitely correct moving forward and I remain very positive in the direction of this group. We're going to go back to some basics in the next couple days and continue to work on developing consistency and sustainability in our decision making and play making."
 
Bellarmine returns home on Saturday to face another former ASUN member in Detroit Mercy. Opening faceoff is set for 12 p.m. ET on ESPN+.
 
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