The Trinity Shamrocks defeated the Manual boys’ lacrosse team 17-2 Wednesday night at Manual Stadium. Manual was out of sync all night, as the Trinity offense jumped to a 5-0 lead by the second quarter.  The Crimsons’ offense could not get going at all and was unable to convert against the Shamrocks’ defense until Brenton Wolford (12, #10) scored at the end of the first half.

Head coach Nathan Moore cited poor defense and a lack of confidence against the second-ranked Shamrocks as the key factors in the loss.

“We played scared and  without confidence all night,”  Moore said, “Playing Trinity is what messed us up, it wasn’t the talent level, it was the name Trinity carries, our score is not reflective of the outcome.”

Throughout the season, Manual’s defense has played well, but in this game they did not communicate and were slow to defend the goal.

“We had a few possessions were our defense played very well but overall we didn’t slide fast enough, and our second slide wasn’t there so we left our goalie out on an island.” Moore said.

The Crimsons’ offense turned the ball over several times with a multitude of dropped passes, which allowed Trinity to score on turnovers several times.

“We put the ball on the ground way too many times on offense, and we didn’t have confidence and we weren’t able to hang with them without confidence,” Moore said.

“Overall we had a pretty sloppy game, not because of our skills, but because of our confidence level,” Nick Brewer (11, #6) said. “We acted like we didn’t deserve the right to be on the field with Trinity. It was just a bad outing for our team.”

Manual drops to 4-6 on the season after this loss, and they will travel to Lexington to face Henry Clay on Sat. April 25.