Box
Photo gallery (courtesy of Dan Ceccacci)
SCRANTON, Pa.—The University of Scranton men’s lacrosse team turned up the heat defensively against King’s College Wednesday afternoon at Fitzpatrick Field.
Trailing 4-2 after the first period, the Royals held the Monarchs to just one goal over the final 45 minutes of play en route to an 8-5 victory, their third straight to improve to 3-3 on the season. The loss drops King’s to 0-4.
Senior midfielder Will Mahle (Montgomery, NJ/Montgomery) led Scranton with a career-high four goals and senior attackman Anthony Lombardo (Mendham, NJ/Mendham) finished with two goals and two assists. The Royals also received a goal and an assist apiece from sophomore attackman Jake Haimson (Montville, NJ/Montville) and freshman midfielder Conor Carey (Long Beach, NY/Chaminade) and two assists from junior midfielder Nicholas Swift (Lafayette Hill, Pa./Plymouth Whitemarsh).
King’s, which held a 29-27 advantage in shots and 32-30 margin in ground balls, was led by freshman attackman Cam Trick (Telford, Pa./Souderton) with two goals and senior attackman Kevin Sweeney (North Wales, Pa./Hatboro-Horsham), sophomore midfielder Kyle Wilk (Bethlehem, Pa./Nazareth), and junior midfielder Evan Lawshe (Caldwell, NJ/Caldwell) scored a goal apiece.
The Monarchs took their final lead early in the third period when Sweeney scored his first goal of the season off of a play set up by freshman midfielder Brock Johnson (Gilbertsville, Pa./Boyertown). Scranton countered immediately, as Carey and Haimson scored twice within 11 seconds of each other after junior midfielder Matt Finor (Churchville, Pa./Council Rock South) won the next two face-offs. For the game, Finor won 12 of 16 face-offs to bring his season total of 72 of 102 (70.5 percent).
Mahle then put the Royals up 7-5 late in the third period off of an assist by Carey and sealed it with a goal with 2:12 left on a play set up by Lombardo.
The Royal back line of Ryan Millard (Long Valley, NJ/West Morris Central), Peter Meehan (Rockville Centre, NY/South Side), and Patrick Sawyer (Doylestown, Pa./Germantown Academy) kept the Monarchs from getting off high-quality shots against Scranton junior goalkeeper Nicholas McKaba (Long Valley, NJ/West Morris), who finished with eight saves, including two from close range in the fourth period.
Millard, Meehan, Sawyer, and McKaba combined for 14 of the Royals’ 30 ground balls, while Meehan and Sawyer combined for three of Scranton’s four caused turnovers.
Scranton now leads the all-time series with King’s College, 9-2. The Royals will return to action this Sunday, March 15, against Catholic University in the Landmark Conference opener for both teams in Washington, DC, beginning at 1:00 p.m.
--ROYALS--
