Pride Powers Past Huntingdon 18-6
March 28, 2026 | Pride Field, Greensboro, NC
If you wanted to know what the Greensboro College Pride looked like when they played with a chip on their shoulder, Saturday afternoon at Pride Field was your answer.
One week removed from an 18-9 loss at Pfeiffer where penalties and discipline issues torpedoed a competitive first half, the Pride came out against Huntingdon College looking like a completely different team. Greensboro scored six unanswered goals in the first quarter, built a 13-1 halftime lead, and coasted to an 18-6 victory that was never in doubt from the opening faceoff. The win moves the Pride to 9-2 overall and 3-1 in USA South Conference play — a strong position heading into the final stretch of the regular season.
This is what a bounce-back looks like.
Justin Barry Put On a Clinic
There's no burying the lede here: Justin Barry was absurd on Saturday.
The senior attackman scored seven goals and added two assists for a nine-point afternoon, putting his stamp on this game from the opening whistle. Barry found the back of the net just 59 seconds into the contest to set the tone, and he never let up. His back-to-back goals late in the fourth quarter served as an exclamation point on a performance that was, frankly, as complete as you'll see from an offensive player at any level of DIII lacrosse.
Seven goals. Two assists. Seven ground balls. Two caused turnovers. Barry wasn't just scoring — he was doing the dirty work, too. When your leading scorer is also one of your most active players on the ground ball sheet, that's the kind of effort that lifts everyone around him.
The First Quarter Set the Table
The story of this game was really told in the first fifteen minutes. Greensboro came out with an intensity that Huntingdon simply couldn't match, rattling off six straight goals before the Hawks could even get on the board. Will Pailthorpe scored twice in the opening frame, Chas Gilroy added a pair of his own, and Barry bookended the quarter with goals to give the Pride a 6-0 cushion heading into the second.
For a team that had penalty trouble written all over its last box score, the discipline was a welcome sight. Greensboro committed just one penalty the entire game — a dramatic improvement over the nine they racked up at Pfeiffer. When you're not giving the other team free possessions, you get to play your game. And Greensboro's game, when they play it clean, is pretty effective.
Second Quarter Kept the Foot Down
The Pride didn't coast into halftime — they kept scoring. Seven more goals in the second quarter pushed the lead to 13-1 at the break. Barry, Mattoon, and freshman Nathan Foncilus all found the net during the stretch, while Seth Woods added a man-down goal — a nice bit of special teams composure that this team needed after going 1-for-7 on the extra man just a week ago.
Huntingdon managed just a single goal across the first thirty minutes. When you're trailing by twelve at halftime against a team that's already playing with house money, the second half becomes a formality.
Depth Scoring Showed Up
Beyond Barry's headline performance, this was a balanced offensive effort. Eight different players found the back of the net, and ten assists were distributed across the roster. Seth Woods (2G, 2A) was dangerous all afternoon with a team-high 11 shots. Pailthorpe (2G, 1A) and Mattoon (2G, 1A) each contributed three-point days. Gilroy's two goals — both in the first quarter — helped set the early tone.
Colin Byrne chipped in a goal and an assist to go with three ground balls, Jon Schwartzel scored his goal on two shots, and Foncilus added a goal and an assist in what's becoming a quietly productive freshman campaign. Even Quinton Solomon got in on the action with an assist to complement his dominant day at the faceoff X.
That kind of offensive distribution is what makes a team hard to game plan against. You can key on Barry, but if Byrne and Schwartzel and Foncilus are also putting the ball in the cage, there's no single matchup that shuts this offense down.
Controlling Possession
The stat sheet tells a clean story. Greensboro out-shot Huntingdon 51-34, won the faceoff battle 17-11 thanks to Solomon's work at the X, and collected 35 ground balls as a team. The Pride also won the turnover battle 20-25 — Huntingdon coughed it up 25 times — and cleared at a solid clip against a Hawks defense that forced 14 caused turnovers on the day.
The faceoff edge is particularly noteworthy. After getting dominated 11-18 at the X by Pfeiffer's Lee Caldwell last Saturday, Solomon responded by going 17-23 and giving the Pride consistent first possession. When you're winning the faceoff, you're setting the pace. Greensboro set the pace from the jump and never relinquished it.
Mitchell Stays Sharp, Hansen Gets His Minutes
Braeden Mitchell continued his solid season in the cage with 15 saves over 50:15 of action, posting a .714 save percentage. He allowed just six goals — a far cry from the 18 he saw go in last week — and looked comfortable behind a defense that was clearly playing with more structure and communication.
The blowout also gave Hayden Hansen nearly ten minutes of game time to close things out, and the backup goalie made the most of it with one save and zero goals allowed. Getting Hansen real minutes in a conference game is a small but meaningful development for a program that needs depth behind Mitchell down the stretch.
The Bigger Picture
Greensboro's 9-2 start is the kind of season that earns attention. But the real test of this team's identity was always going to be how they responded to adversity, and the Pfeiffer loss was the first real punch in the mouth they'd taken all year. Saturday's answer — 18 goals from eight different scorers, disciplined play, faceoff dominance, and a 13-1 halftime lead — was emphatic.
The series history with Huntingdon is also worth noting. The Pride had dropped the 2025 meeting 7-10 in Montgomery and had gone 4-6 in the last ten matchups against the Hawks dating back to 2017. Saturday's 18-6 win was Greensboro's largest margin of victory in the series since a 20-6 blowout back in 2021, and it snapped any narrative that Huntingdon was a problematic matchup.
That said, context matters. Huntingdon came in at 4-7 overall and 1-3 in conference — this was a game the Pride were supposed to win, and they won it convincingly. The real questions about this team will get answered on the road at Southern Virginia on Tuesday and in the remaining conference slate. Can they sustain this kind of offensive balance? Can the penalty discipline hold? Can Solomon keep winning the faceoff X against better competition?
The answers will come. For now, enjoy the seven-goal game from Barry, appreciate the bounce-back, and recognize that a 9-2 team playing with this kind of confidence is going to be a tough out for anyone left on the schedule.
