Lynn Lacrosse Honors Yards for Yeardley

By: Michael Demyan

Photo Credit: Lynn Athletic Communications

The Lynn University lacrosse team honored the One Love Foundation’s Yards for Yeardley movement at home Saturday, March 25, before falling to Florida Tech in the SSC opener.

Throughout the school year, the team has been raising awareness of the movement and before Saturday’s game, they wore One Love warm up shirts for the second year in a row.

The foundation was created in 2010 to honor Yeardley Love, a women’s lacrosse player at the University of Virginia, who was murdered by her ex-boyfriend. Yards for Yeardley brings awareness to relationship abuse on college campuses and in turn, strives to bring an end to it altogether.

“Our Title IX office with Lorna Fink and Matt Roche did a great job raising relationship violence awareness through the One Love Foundation,” head coach Brian Kingsbury said. “Playing a game in Yeardley’s honor helps bring the ‘big picture’ to these young men.”

Lynn University and teams around the country showed their support by reaching a goal of running one million yards in 30 days. Over 1.7 million yards were accomplished by 106 people who submitted their steps, which almost doubled the initial target.

Christopher Knight ran 420,000 yards and was the overall winner, while David Czarlinsky, a Lynn freshman, led the students with 105,000 yards.

Photo Credit: Lynn Athletic Communications

“It was great to be able to walk for such a meaningful cause,” Czarlinsky said. “It was nice because everyone who walked pledged to end dating violence.”

Once the game started, the Fighting Knights quickly took a 1-0 lead thanks to Caleb Cerf’s first goal of the season. The lead did not last long however, as Florida Tech came back with three unanswered goals, putting them on top 3-1.

With just seconds remaining in the first quarter, Lynn’s Johnny Gavin scored a goal off an assist by Austin Jerhoff to bring them back within one.

The second quarter went back and forth as Lynn consistently answered back after Florida Tech scored multiple goals. Then with 15 seconds left, Jerhoff scored his second goal of the game to tie the game at five, before coming back again 14 seconds later for the hat trick, which gave them the lead.

The lead continued to change between the two teams throughout much of the third and fourth quarters. Lynn grabbed a 10-9 with just over 10 minutes remaining in the game, but Florida Tech was able to tie it once more 44 seconds later.

The score remained tied until Florida Tech’s Addison Abramson scored the go-ahead goal with 2:15 remaining, as they went on to take an 11-10 victory. The loss meant the Fighting Knight’s record fell to 4-4.