Lusby Sparks Loyola Over No. 19 Delaware
from staff reports
BALTIMORE – Eric Lusby returned to the Loyola men's lacrosse lineup Saturday afternoon after missing most of last season with a knee injury, and he finished with a career-high four goals in the Greyhounds' 13-8 victory over 19th-ranked University of Delaware at Ridley Athletic Complex.
Lusby scored Loyola’s first goal, 2:59 into the second
quarter, on an extra-man opportunity, sparking a 5-0 run that saw
the Greyhounds rally from three down to two up in the span of less
than six minutes.
Delaware (2-1) dominated play in the first quarter and led 3-0 when
Nick Diachenko scored with 2:15 left in the frame.
The Greyhounds, however, had a long possession to start the second,
and then got the ball back when goalkeeper Michael Bonitatibus made
a save on Diachenko. After Loyola cleared the ball, Mike Sawyer
took a shot that went off the cross bar, but Delaware was whistled
for a check to the head, putting the Greyhounds on the
extra-man.
Twenty-five seconds into the possession, Sawyer slipped a pass to
Lusby who wound up and shot from almost 15 yards out, scoring his
first goal since 2010.
Lusby tore his right ACL in the 2010 NCAA first round game at
Cornell. He attempted a comeback last season, but the injury
hampered him early, and he received a medical redshirt after
playing slightly in just two games.
The Greyhounds scored again to pull within two when Sawyer took a
Sean O’Sullivan pass, faked a pass of his own and shot from
12-plus yards, scoring an extra-man goal of his own at 6:05.
Just 31 seconds later, after another Loyola face-off win, Davis
Butts used a spin move at the top of the right alley, drove toward
the goal and scored high-to-low, tying the game at 3-3.
Loyola’s run continued when Delaware drew another illegal
body check penalty on the ensuing face-off. Blue Hens goalkeeper
Chris Herbert saved a Sawyer shot, but the ball trickled outside
the crease where PatrickFanshaw picked up the ground ball and
dumped a shot over Herbert’s shoulder to put Loyola in front
for the first time with 5:03 to go in the half.
J.P. Dalton won another face-off for Loyola, his fifth in a row,
and Fanshaw scored again off a Justin Ward pass with 4:22 on the
clock, putting the Greyhounds up, 5-3.
Delaware got one back on a Grant Kaleikau goal 1:22 before the
break, sending the teams to the locker room with Loyola up,
5-4.
Dalton’s play at the ‘X’ was key to
Loyola’s 5-0 run that covered 5-minutes, 39-seconds.
Delaware’s Dan Cooney won all four restarts in the first
quarter, but Dalton won the first five of the second, helping
theGreyhounds control possession and the quarter’s tempo.
“I thought that after we settled down, J.P. made it a battle
out there,” head coach Charley Toomey said. “This is
one of J.P.’s first games where he’s taken all of the
face-offs in his career, and we are asking a lot of him to win the
face-offs and then play offense. He really went out there and did a
great job of getting the ball out to our wings, and that started to
change the game for us.”
Dalton finished the game with a 14-of-25 mark at the
‘X’, winning 5-of-7 in both the second and third
quarters.
“I don’t think that we were whistle-ready to start the
game,” Toomey said. “(Delaware) had played two games,
and we were not as sharp, but I think we started to let the game
come to us a little bit more, and that’s when good things
started to happen.”
Neither team was especially sharp to start the third quarter, as
Loyola hit two posts with shots on its first possession, and the
Blue Hens misfired on their first three.
Jeff Fletcher caused a Kaleikau turnover, picked up the ground ball
and started a Loyola clear near the nine-minute mark in the third,
a possession that culminated when Lusby rolled at the top of the
right alley and fired a shot into the upper left corner of the net
with 8:29 on the clock.
Herbert saved two O’Sullivan shots on Loyola’s ensuing
possession after the Greyhounds controlled the face-off, and
Delaware took the ball into its offensive end.
Connor McRoy ripped a shot from inside eight yards, but Bonitatibus
saved it cleanly and quickly threw an outlet pass to Scott Ratliff
who executed a one-man clear to the offensive zone.
Ratliff faked a pass at the top of the box, freezing an onrushing
Delaware defender, and he scored in the unsettled situation,
pushing Loyola’s lead to three.
Less than a minute later, Sawyer used a spin move at goal-line
extended on the left side, got free and shot from inside 10 yards
for his second goal of the game.
Dalton and Ratliff again combined to win the faceoff, and after a
Ward shot went high, Lusby took an O’Sullivan pass and shot
on Herbert. The shot initially appeared to be thwarted by Herbert,
but it tricked loose and rolled over the goal line to give Loyola a
9-4 lead with 3:58 left in the third quarter.
A Loyola penalty led to a Delaware extra-man goal 40 seconds later,
this one scored by Brenden Gilson, but Lusby struck again 41 ticks
later, spinning to his right and scoring.
His four goals were a career-high after he had scored three on four
previous occasions.
Delaware scored twice in the first five mintues of the final
quarter, cutting Loyola’s lead to 10-7 when Kaleikau assisted
on a Danny Keane goal, but Loyola ran over three minutes off the
clock after that, and Phil Dobson scored his first collegiate goal
with a low-to-low shot form 15 yards out.
Loyola again wound down the clock, and after killing more than two
minutes, Delaware got the ball back, but Ratliff caused a Blue Hens
turnover, and Loyola went back on the offensive.
Nikko Pontrello, playing in his first collegiate game,wrapped
around the crease and scored with 3:46 left in the game.
The teams traded goals after that, Delaware scoring on the
extra-man, and Sawyer tallying his third of the game, man-down with
33 seconds to play.
Bonitatibus made his first collegiate start in the game and
finished with seven saves, five ground balls and two caused
turnovers.
Loyola picked up 34 ground balls to the Blue Hens’ 28, led by
Ratliff’s seven. The Greyhounds also held a 44-23 shot
advantage in the game, and they were a perfect 16-of-16 clearing
the ball.
The victory was Loyola’s third-straight in season-openers and
19th in a row over Delaware.
The Greyhounds return to action next Saturday when they host Towson
University at 1 p.m. at Ridley Athletic Complex.
