Four months after the men’s lacrosse team became a varsity sport at Michigan, the Division-I Wolverines took the field for the first time, playing two exhibition games at Michigan Stadium against Providence and Concordia (Wisconsin) on Sunday.

The Friars narrowly defeated the Wolverines in a sudden-death overtime 10-9, but Michigan regrouped and beat the Falcons 16-3 later in the afternoon.

Michigan trailed until 4:03 left in the game against Providence when senior midfielder Alexander Vasileff scored to tie the game at 10-10. It was the first time the Wolverines weren’t trailing in the game since the first face-off.

“This was pretty exciting, since it was a historical day for us,” said Michigan coach John Paul. “As historical as it was, we really wanted to get that out of our heads and just focus on playing lacrosse.”

Against the Friars, Michigan had multiple turnovers and got off to a slow start — it allowed Providence to score twice during the first seven minutes.

“I don’t know that we were nervous, we just have some things that we need to execute better and we’ve seen that all fall,” Paul said. “With repetition we’ll get better at those things. I thought once we got settled down after the first couple of minutes the guys approached it in a really smart way.”

Whether it was nerves or not, the Wolverines looked like a different team against Concordia. Michigan opened up the game with three goals in the first five minutes, and by halftime it held a commanding 11-1 lead.

Redshirt senior and team captain Trevor Yealy led the way for the Wolverines, with a hat trick against the Friars.

“It felt good,” Yealy said. “It was definitely the best fall game we had as a team in a while so it was pretty encouraging both from a personal and a team standpoint today.”

Three freshmen made notable contributions: attackman Will Meter, goalie Emil Weiss and midfielder David Joseph. Weiss had 15 saves against Providence, including a spectacular save on a point-blank shot when it was tied late in the fourth quarter. Meter scored two goals, one of which was a between-the-legs shot from the crease as he broke down the defense and somehow managed to get the shot off.

For the freshmen, it was their first game as college lacrosse players. But their strong performances suggest that they will contribute when the season begins in the spring.

“(College lacrosse) is definitely faster-paced than high school lacrosse,” Weiss said. “Games are a little bit longer, but all in all I thought we played really well for our first game as a Division-I team.”

Michigan may be young, and inexperienced at the Varsity level, but it is confident that it will be competitive come the spring.

“We just need to clean up the sloppiness,” Yealy said. “We had a lot of errant passes, a lot of not great shots and a lot of turnovers. If we can clean that up, I think we’re going to put ourselves in a great spot down the road.”