Lehigh Edges Holy Cross 7-5
from press release
WORCESTER, Mass. – Lehigh earned a
crucial Patriot League road victory on Tuesday afternoon with a 7-5
win over Holy Cross. Senior Ricky Cornetta continues to carry the
Mountain Hawks offense as he netted a hat trick and also handed out
one assist as Lehigh improves to 2-3 in Patriot League play. Holy
Cross received goals from five different players as the Crusaders
fall to 0-6 in league action following the setback. Lehigh has now
beaten Holy Cross in all 19 meetings between the schools in
men’s lacrosse.
Lehigh unleashed 36 shots for the game, led by Cornetta and Roman
Lao-Gosney with six apiece. Will Scudder was strong in the X,
winning 11-of-16 face-offs, and he also scooped up four ground
balls. Rich Bradley led the Brown and White with five GBs and the
sophomore also caused a pair of turnovers; one of three Mountain
Hawks that caused two TOs. Morgan Haller got the start in goal and
stopped seven shots in his 60 minutes of work.
Holy Cross took only 19 shots, led by Kenny Minor with four, while
Jimmy Harrison and Brendan Candon both scooped up three ground
balls. Harrison also stopped nine shots in goal and caused one
turnover, while Paddy Dowling won four-of-six face-offs.
Brian Bienemann got Lehigh on the board just 44 seconds into the
game and Cornetta scored 2:31 later to give the Mountain Hawks an
early 2-0 lead. Luke Marchand scored Holy Cross’ first goal
of the afternoon with 10:22 left in the opening quarter, but
Cornetta answered with back-to-back scores off assists from Evan
Guerrero and Max Dahlem, respectively to give the Brown and White a
4-1 advantage with 52 seconds to go. Colin McGeehin beat Haller
with a shot with just six ticks to go though, cutting the Mountain
Hawks lead in half heading into the second quarter of action.
After neither team scored for over seven minutes, freshman Cameron
Lao-Gosney found the back of the net with 7:40 left before halftime
to make the score 5-2. That was Lehigh’s lone goal of the
quarter however, and following a Kenny Minor score, Lehigh took a
5-3 lead into halftime.
Colin Flood scored the first goal of the third quarter off a feed
from Conor McKenna to bring the home team within one with 12:09
left on the clock. After going nearly the entire 15 minutes without
a goal, Chris Lubin put an end to the Mountain Hawks scoring
drought and scored off an assist from Cornetta, sending the teams
into the final 15 minutes with the Brown and White leading 6-4.
Chris Smirti made it a one-goal affair when he found the back of
the net with 11:22 to go in the contest, but from there
Lehigh’s defense held strong as Holy Cross was credited with
only three shots for the entire fourth quarter. Freshman Adam
Johnston added an insurance goal with 1:15 to go when he scored on
the man-up for Lehigh, sending the Mountain Hawks to their fourth
road victory of the season.
Lehigh closes out its 2009 regular season on Saturday evening as
the Mountain Hawks play host to archrival Lafayette at the Ulrich
Sports Complex. The opening face-off is set for 7:00 and live video
of the contest will be shown live on Lehighsports.com.
