Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 5/20/10
From Press Releases
Ryan Finch scored 12 seconds into overtime after winning the face-off to lift host Salisbury University to a 12-11 victory over Haverford College in the quarterfinals of the NCAA Division III men’s lacrosse championships Wednesday night.
Haverford (12-6) broke a 9-9 tie in the fourth quarter with successive goals by Phillip Valliant and Andrew Kim but Salisbury (20-1) netted two in the waning minutes – the last with just 33 ticks left on the clock – to send the game into an extra stanza.
A barn-burner that was tied eight times started off as a game of spurts with the second-seeded Sea Gulls breaking out on top, 2-0, but the Fords scored four in a row, the last three by Travis Gregory, to stake the underdogs to a 4-2 lead.
The Fords led 3-2 at the end of the first, 6-5 at the half, and 8-7 at the end of the third, then were up 11-9 with 7:07 to play after Kim’s goal before Salisbury staged its come-back.
Gregory finished with a game-high three goals for the Fords, and Myles Monaghan, Max Hjelm and Valliant added two apiece. Salisbury had four players score two each in the win, including Finch whose pair was a season-high.
Haverford goalie Joe Banno registered six of his 11 saves in the fourth period. Sea Gulls netminder Johnny Rodriguez earned the win in goal finishing with 10 saves.
The loss ends the deepest run into the NCAA tournament the Fords have ever taken, falling two wins shy of the national championship game.
The Haverford graduating class – Matt Dooley, Brian Fleishhacker, Kim, Ian Holmes, David Lawrence, Andrew Devlin, Alex Guy, Jordan Daniels, Grant Firestone and Matt Starke – closes out its career with a 44-21 (.677) four-year record.
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