Lehigh University
Holy Cross
Mountain Hawks earn hard fought road win
4/14/2009 12:00:00 AM | Men's Lacrosse
 |
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.
