Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 4/29/15
From Press Releases
Trailing 5-3 in the middle of the third quarter, host Ursinus closed the game on a 5-1 scoring run as the Bears (13-2) defeated Dickinson (7-9) 8-6 on Wednesday night in the Centennial Conference Men’s Lacrosse semifinals at Patterson Field.
The Bears, seeded second, won their first playoff game in school history and will advance to play top-seeded Gettysburg on Saturday at 2 p.m. in Gettysburg. The Bullets defeated Washington College 23-5 in the day’s other semifinal.
As for the Bears, senior attack Steve Smyrl (Garnet Valley) scored three goals, while freshman midfielder Gerard Brown (Montclair, N.J./Montclair) had two goals in the win.
Dickinson got three goals from Rob Kendall, and a goal and assist from Kobi Frankel.
After Dickinson’s Tucker Carney scored with 7:14 left in the third quarter to give the Red Devils a 5-3 lead, Ursinus pulled within one with 40 seconds left in the quarter on a goal by senior midfielder Jake Weber (Manheim Township) on an assist from senior midfielder Mike Neal.
Back-to-back goals from Smyrl, the latter coming with 12:31 left in the game on an assist from Weber, gave the Bears a 6-5 lead. Brown scored his first of the game at 11:24 to give the Bears their biggest lead at 7-5.
Following a goal by Rob Kendall from Dickinson to cut the Red Devil deficit to 7-6, Brown scored the last goal of the game with 7:50 left to give the Bears the 8-6 edge.
The run countered Dickinson’s 4-0 run in the first and second quarters, that gave the Red Devils a 4-1 lead with 10:56 left in the first half.
Ursinus junior goalkeeper Brian Neff (Ephrata) made nine saves during the game, and kept the Bears in the game in the second quarter as Dickinson had a 19-12 edge in shots in the first 30 minutes.
Individually, Neff had five ground balls and junior faceoff specialist James Fairchild (Malvern Prep) was 9-for-18 on faceoffs. Senior defender Cody Lefevre and senior long stick midfielder Kevin Kohout (Gloucester Catholic) each had two caused turnovers.
Eastern 17, King’s 4
Eastern broke a 2-2 first quarter tie with five consecutive goals in the second quarter and never looked back against King’s College. The No. 20 Eagles overcame a slow start to cruise to a 17-4 victory and advance to the Freedom Conference Championship for the fourth year in-a-row.
Eastern (14-3) looks to win the Freedom crown for the fourth straight year on Saturday at 1 p.m. when they faceoff against Misericordia University.
Grant Ferguson and Eric Waibel each recorded a hat trick, midfielders Kyle Gillam, Dez Decker and Bryan Mizell each scored twice. Tim Lamb, Andrew Travers, Bryan Goetz, Jake Billera and David Darling all scored as well. Darling also dealt out four assists to become Eastern’s all-time assists leader with 99 career assists.
Much like the first time these two teams met in the beginning of the month, King’s scored early in the first quarter to take the initial lead. In the first meeting, King’s became the first conference team to hold a lead over the Eagles at the end of a quarter. On Wednesday, the game was knotted at 2-2 by the end of the first quarter.
Eastern’s four All-Conference Second Team midfielders scored Eastern’s first four goals. Billera and Travers each scored in the first quarter. Lamb gave Eastern the lead 3-2 with 8:59 to play in the second, and Mizell upped Eastern’s lead 1:23 later. Kyle Lansey recovered a ground ball on the defensive end, cut up field and found Mizell open in the middle of the field for the transition goal.
Eastern’s attackmen hadn’t been able to squeeze anything past Monarchs’ goalie William Pokorny. Pokorny already had 10 saves before Grant Ferguson tagged him for a goal on a crease roll with 6:23 remaining in the second. Pokorny finished with 17 saves.
An unnecessary roughness penalty on the goal put Eastern man-up and Gillam took advantage of the power play, netting his 14th goal of the season 30 seconds into the penalty. Ferguson gave the Eagles a five-goal lead with 3:49 to go in the half. Darling had recovered a ground ball off the pipe that bounced past midfield. Darling took advantage of the quick field switch and zipped a pass to Waibel. Waibel and Ferguson formed a two-on-one fastbreak and Waibel flipped it over to Ferguson who juked high and finished low.
King’s chipped at Eastern’s lead with a goal to end the first half and start the second, but Eastern crushed any idea of a comeback with 10 unanswered goals to end the game.
Monarch faceoff specialist Nick Foley won nine faceoffs, but the Eagles’ tandem of Matt Lee and Joe Palo combined to win 14-of-23 attempts.
Eastern senior defender Jordan Norris helped back up his conference Defensive Player of the Year selection with a game-high six caused turnovers as well as four ground balls.
Stevenson 8, Widener 3
The 2015 Widener men’s lacrosse campaign came to an end as the Pride fell to top-seeded and seventh-ranked Stevenson in the Commonwealth Semifinals at Mustang Stadium.
The Pride close out the season with a 7-10 record, while the Mustangs improve to 14-4.
The home squad pulled ahead 3-0 after the first quarter with scores from Colin Dabney, Matt Tompkins, and Billy Burgoyne. Junior attacker Marc LaVine (Nashua, N.H.) cut that lead to two (3-1) with an unassisted tally just 1:07 into the second period. Neither team found the back of the cage over the next 13 minutes until Tompkins notched his second of the contest with 54 ticks left in the half on a man-up opportunity. The Mustangs’ four goals were the lowest total in a half since Mar. 21.
LaVine opened the scoring in the latter half with his second unassisted marker after 2:31 had passed. But that second two-point advantage would prove to be the closest the Pride would come as the Mustangs rattled off three-straight to pull ahead 7-2 behind a Alex Hardwick score bookended by a pair by Burgoyne. Freshman midfielder Patrick Richardson (Westville, N.J.) closed out the scoring for Widener with 7:27 left to play, pulling the score to 7-3, but Tony Rossi added an insurance goal just over a minute later to help secure the 8-3 victory.
Junior netminder Tyler McClary (Galena, Ohio) recorded a game-high 16 saves, while Connor Skeen turned aside seven shots for the Mustangs.
The home squad led in almost every team category, holding a 51-38 shot advantage, including 24-10 on goal. They collected 38 ground balls to the Pride’s 32, and were successful on 24-of-26 clears while Widener completed 19-of-25.
Stevenson advances to the Commonwealth Finals and will take on second-seeded Messiah on Saturday.
Messiah 7, Albright 6
Senior goalie Nicholas Pisko made 10 saves, but Tyler Goglio scored with 17 seconds remaining in regulation lifting Messiah to a victory over Albright in the semifinals of the Commonwealth Conference Tournament at Starry Athletic Complex.
Pisko was outstanding for Albright, making key saves throughout the contest. In a cruel twist, Pisko appeared to make the save on the shot by Goglio, but the ball trickled past him into the net sending the Falcons to the Commonwealth Tournament championship game on Saturday.
In the first game played between the two teams this season, Albright rallied from a 7-3 deficit to force overtime. On Wednesday, it was the Falcons who came from behind.
Albright took a 5-2 lead into the intermission, but Messiah scored the first four goals of the second half to take a 6-5 lead on its way to the win.
Andrew Potter scored two goals and had an assist to lead the Albright offensive attack, while T.J. Holston, Ryan Turner, Philip Potter and Derek Stump each had a goal for the Lions.
Goglio and Matthew Franken each had a pair of goals to pace the Falcons, while Blake Knobloch, Ryan Van Bochoven and Dean Patton each had a goal.
Franken gave Messiah the early lead when he scored an unassisted goal with 12:29 to play in the opening period.
Albright knotted the score at 1-1 when Philip Potter scored a goal on the doorstep with 11:18 to play in the first.
Turner put Albright ahead at 2-1 when he took a feed from Andrew Potter and found the back of the net with 10:16 left in the opening period.
Messiah tied the score at 2-2 when Patton scored an unassisted goal at the 7:07 mark of the first period.
Andrew Potter put the Lions back in front at 3-2 with an unassisted goal with 5:33 to play and Stump capped the first-period scoring with a goal at the buzzer giving Albright a 4-2 lead.
Andrew Potter scored the only goal of the second period with 1:31 to play before the intermission off a feed from Bryan Smith giving the Lions a 5-2 advantage at the break.
Pisko kept the Falcons off the scoreboard in the second period as he made four saves.
Messiah came alive in the third period as it outscored Albright 3-0 to tie the game at 5-5. Franken, Van Bochoven and Goglio each had goals for the Falcons in the third.
Knobloch scored an unassisted goal with 10:06 to play in the game giving Messiah a 6-5 lead.
Albright rallied to tie the game at 6-6 with 3:50 to play when Holston scored off a beautiful pass from Joe Devinney.
Both teams had opportunities down the stretch and Cody Sandy almost forced a turnover on the Falcons final possession, but Goglio came up with the ground ball and Messiah called a timeout.
Following the timeout, the Falcons worked the ball to Goglio who scored the game-winning goal.
Albright had one final chance after Darian Meador won the ensuing faceoff, but a wild scramble in front of the Messiah goal resulted in a ground ball for Kyle Margosian and he ran out the clock.
Albright dropped to 13-4 overall on the season, while Messiah improved to 12-4 on the year.
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