Phillylacrosse.com, Posted 2/20/20
From Press Release
The No. 18 Lehigh men’s lacrosse team fell into a 6-2 hole midway through the second quarter, but rebounded to outscore visiting VMI 12-5 the rest of the way in a 14-11 victory on Thursday evening at the Ulrich Sports Complex..
Fifth-year senior Andrew Pettit (Tower Hill-DE) paced the offense with a career-high eight goals, which also tied a 23-year old program record. He finished with five of Lehigh’s six third-quarter goals and six of the Mountain Hawks’ nine second-half goals in a dominant performance. The win improves Lehigh’s record to 2-1 on the young season.
“We needed every single one of the eight goals from Pettit,” said Lehigh head coach Kevin Cassese. “He’d been struggling a little bit in the early season. I challenged him in the pregame before we came out for the first faceoff and I thought he really rose to the occasions.
“For him to step up like that was really big. We needed some leadership tonight. I felt like we didn’t have a lot of it throughout the early stages of the game, but he provided a tremendous boost – a great spark – and a lot of leadership for us.”
Pettit’s eight goals came on 11 shots, breaking his previous career high of five goals. He also shattered his career high for groundballs, finishing with eight. Meanwhile, sophomore Tommy Schelling continued his stellar play to start the season, tallying six points (three goals, three assists). Through three games, Schelling owns 13 goals and six assists. Freshman Christian Mule’ impressed as well, recording four points via a goal and three assists.
“Our offense worked really well today,” said Pettit. “I was the beneficiary of a lot of great passes and was able to put them in the back of the net, but the offense as a whole played really together. Extra passes was leading to more open shots. That ended up piling together and we put a lot on the board tonight. I’m proud of the way the offense played.”
Defensively, sophomore Michael Hagenberger had two groundballs and a team-high two caused turnovers in his first start of the season. The Mountain Hawks won 18-of-28 faceoffs for the game, led by 12-of-17 with six groundballs from senior Conor Gaffney (Lenape). Junior Teddy Leggett also collected seven groundballs.
The Keydets enjoyed a fast start, scoring first and later using a 5-1 run to take a 6-2 lead with 7:37 left in the second quarter.
The Mountain Hawks’ response began late in the quarter, as Schelling, Pettit and Gersbeck all scored in the span of 1:35 to pull Lehgih within 6-5 at the half. Gersbeck’s goal marked the first of his career.
VMI opened the third-quarter scoring, but goals from Schelling, Pettit and again Pettit – in the span of 3:20 – gave Lehigh its first lead at 8-7. The Keydets responded to pull even at eight, nine, 10 and 11, but the Mountain Hawks ended the game on a 3-0 run to turn an 11-11 tie into a 14-11 final.
For the game, the Mountain Hawks held a 34-26 edge in shots and 46-35 advantage in groundballs. Junior goaltender James Spence (Springfield-Delco) made eight saves across VMI’s Bill Osteen, who recorded nine.
“I saw a VMI team that was really impressive,” said Cassese. “They took the fight to us. Offensively, they were swarming us. They really got after the groundball. I thought they outplayed us for the majority of the game. I’m definitely proud of our guys for answering. It was tough sledding for us tonight, mostly due to them and what they were doing to us. But at the end of the day, I thought our guys dug deep and managed to fight, get the comeback and get the victory.”
The Mountain Hawks return to action in less than 48 hours when they travel to NJIT on Saturday to face the Highlanders. Gametime is set for 12 p.m.