Lehigh University
No. 10 Navy
Lehigh upended by Midshipmen on the road
3/11/2008 12:00:00 AM | Men's Lacrosse
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Lehigh was out shot by the Midshipmen 39-23 for the game, but out shot its counterpart 14-13 in the final 30 minutes of play. Dahlem was the team leader with four shots, while freshman Jonathan Stumpf was credited with three. A quartet of Mountain Hawks scooped up three ground balls, including senior goal keeper Eric Spirko, Dustin Clark, Tom Allen and Matt Tract as Lehigh totaled 28 ground balls for the game.
The Mountain Hawks were eight-of-21 on face offs and forced Navy into 21 turnovers, while as a team they were 16-of-18 on clear attempts. Spirko finished with seven saves in goal for the Brown and White in his 45 minutes of action before classmate John Park came in to finish off the game.
Navy was 18-of-23 on clear attempts and one-for-three on extra man opportunities. Mikelis Visgauss led the Midshipmen with eight ground balls and was also nine-of-14 on face offs, while Matt Coughlin stopped six shots in goal in 53 minutes of action.
Patrick Moran scored the game’s first goal just 1:05 into the contest to give Navy a 1-0 lead. Tim Paul put the home team in front 2-0 off a feed from Mirabito at the 4:02 mark of the opening quarter. A second assist from Mirabito led to a goal by Sean Standen with 1:53 left in the first and the Midshipmen led 3-0 after one quarter of play.
Moran opened the scoring in the second quarter with his second goal of the afternoon to put Lehigh in a four-goal hole with 13:30 to go in the first half. The Mountain Hawks got on the board for the first time when Dahlem beat Navy goal keeper Matt Coughlin at the 8:29 mark to pull Lehigh to within three scores.
The Midshipmen answered with their fifth goal of the half however when Gregory Clement scored off of Mirabito’s fourth helper of the half with 1:39 left on the clock. Clement then added another goal with 14 ticks remaining as Navy took a 6-1 lead into halftime after out shooting the Mountain Hawks 26-9 in the first 30 minutes of play.
An unassisted score by Paul with 12:17 to go in the third pushed Navy’s lead to 7-1 and a score by Mirabito just 55 seconds later made the score 8-1 in favor of the Midshipmen. The home team added two more goals in the quarter and took a 10-1 lead into the final 15 minutes of play.
Furst scored his second goal of the season with 12:53 on the clock as he was left unattended by the Navy defense and sprinted in for the score to make it a 10-2 game. Brian Striffler took a feed from Kyle Kapron and scored Navy’s 11th goal of the afternoon with exactly ten minutes to go, but Lehigh answered as McNierney netted a goal off a feed from senior Fred Cassilly with 7:12 to go which made the score 11-3. But just six seconds later the Midshipmen scored again, as Visgauss put them in front 12-3 en route to the victory.
Lehigh returns to action on Saturday afternoon when the Mountain Hawks step out of league play and welcome the Villanova Wildcats to the Ulrich Sports Complex. Game time is set for 1:00 and all of the action will be broadcast live on Lehighsports.com.
Photography (c) 2008, Greg Fota.
