The Lindenwood men's lacrosse team concluded its regular season with a narrowing defeat to Colorado Mesa in Kansas City, Mo. on Friday. The Lions nearly pulled off a comeback late in the fourth quarter after being down by four goals.
In the first quarter, the Lions allowed three goals before
Sean Darroch scored their first goal on a man-up opportunity with 39 seconds remaining.
The Lions continued to battle in the second quarter as they came back to tie the game at four goals apiece. The Mavericks scored the first goal of the quarter to stretch their lead by three, but the Lions surged through with three straight scores.
Jon George slung a ball into the net first then Darroch scored his second goal of the game. The Mavericks committed a cross check penalty at the 11:07 mark in which
David Corazalla took full advantage of with a goal of his own. However, the Mavericks responded with their own scoring spree of three goals to end the half. The Lions trailed 7-4 heading into halftime.
The Lions had a quiet third quarter, not scoring one goal while the Mavericks tallied one to give them an 8-4 lead heading into the final quarter.
In the beginning of the fourth, the Mavericks scored again to give them a game-high five-goal lead, but the Lions registered two goals from
Tyler Eidel and
Henry Wurzer. With just 1:56 left, the Mavericks scored their 10th goal of the game to give themselves a four-goal cushion. The Lions played with high urgency as they lured off two man-up goals from Corazalla and
Kevin Eskridge with just 18 seconds left. Corazalla tallied one last goal, but time expired with the Lions falling by a final score of 10-9.
The Lions held the edge in both the groundball and face-off categories for the game. They picked up 29 groundballs while
Tyler Schermann dominated face-offs, converting 16 of 21 attempts. In the extra-man opportunities category, the Lions stopped the Mavericks on all five tries while converting four of seven on the offensive side of the ball.
Gabe Monteleone led the Lions with two caused-turnovers while six other players recorded one each.
The Lions finish up their regular season with an overall record of 9-5 and 5-3 in the ECAC. They will wait to hear about qualifying for the ECAC Tournament after this weekend.
