No. 16 Lafayette Nips Holy Cross in Overtime
from press release
WORCESTER, Mass. -- The No. 16/20 Lafayette
men's lacrosse team remained unbeaten on Saturday afternoon,
grabbing a dramatic 13-12 overtime victory over Holy Cross in
Worcester, Mass.
Lafayette moves to 8-2 overall and 3-0 in the Patriot League
standings.
Lafayette jumped out early with an unassisted goal from senior
co-captain Steve Serling, exactly one minute into the contest. Just
under five minutes later, sophomore Colin Serling found junior Tom
Perini for his team-leading 26th goal of the season, as Lafayette
grabbed a 2-0 lead with 9:18 left in the first quarter.
From there, the Crusaders controlled the remainder of the opening
15 minutes. Four straight goals gave Holy Cross the 4-2 advantage
at the end of the first quarter.
Lafayette turned to its co-captains to knot the game at four with
to open the second quarter. Serling tallied his second of the
afternoon at the 13:11 mark before Matt Mersky notched his first of
the day less than four minutes later.
Both defenses responded with stops for the remainder of the half,
as the game went scoreless for the final 9:33.
Holy Cross opened the third quarter with two goals before senior
Chris Ahern took a Ryan Hansen pass to cut the deficit to one (6-5)
with 8:40 remaining in the quarter.
The Crusaders outscored the Leopards 4-2 to finish off the third
quarter to take a 9-7 lead into the final 15 minutes. The Leopards
tallied two unassisted goals from senior Brett Djaha and
Mersky.
Lafayette pushed back and tied the game just over seven minutes
into the final frame, as Steve Serling notched two even-strength,
unassisted goals to tie the game at nine.
After Holy Cross regained the lead, the Leopards responded with
Mersky's third of the afternoon and Perini's second to take its
first lead since late in the first quarter (11-10) with 5:49 left
in regulation.
The two teams again exchanged the lead, this time with the
Crusaders notching consecutive goals to go up 12-11 with 2:14
remaining.
However, the Leopards had its answer, with Steve Serling's fifth
goal of the afternoon with 1:34 on the clock and take the game into
overtime.
From there, Lafayette took the game with 1:45 left in the first
overtime when Djaha found junior Stefan Bauer for the game-winning
goal and 13-12 victory.
Senior goalkeeper Vinny DePasquale tallied 17 saves on the
afternoon. The Leopards committed just 15 turnovers to 19 from Holy
Cross. The Crusaders held a slim 16-13 margin in face-offs.
Senior Stewart Inman led Lafayette with five groundballs in the
game.
Lafayette will take next week to regroup and face its final
regular season road game of the year, making the trek to Hamilton,
N.Y. to face Colgate on Friday evening. Face-off is set for 7
p.m.
NOTES:
Stay tuned to GoLeopards.com later this evening to find out if the
Leopards have clinched a Patriot League tournament berth. Lafayette
would need Army to defeat Bucknell and a Lehigh win over Colgate to
secure its first-ever tournament spot after today's contests.
Going into Saturday's contest, Lafayette was the only team in
Division I to have at least seven players with 10 or more goals in
2010.
The Leopards are 3-0 in the Patriot League for the first time
ever. The last time Lafayette had three league wins in a single
season was 1993.
The eight wins are the most since 1984 when Lafayette went 9-4 in
the regular season.
