Second-quarter run leads No. 11/13 Army West Point past Lehigh, 6-4

Saturday, March 11

Bethlehem, Pa.

2 PM

Lehigh University

3-3, 1-2PL

Army West Point

5-1, 2-0PL

Team	1	2	3	4	Final F
Army West Point	1	4	0	1	6
Lehigh	1	2	1	0	4

Second-quarter run leads No. 11/13 Army West Point past Lehigh, 6-4

3/11/2017 5:51:00 PM | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score

BETHLEHEM, Pa. - The Lehigh men's lacrosse defense impressed for a second straight week, allowing just four even strength goals against an Army West Point team averaging 13.4 over its first five games, but it wasn't enough as the Mountain Hawks (3-3, 1-2 Patriot League) dropped a 6-4 final on a cold and windy Saturday afternoon. Army scored three goals (two on the extra man) in the span of 37 seconds in the second quarter, but the Lehigh men's lacrosse team held the Black Knights to just three goals over the game's other 59:23.

"This was a good old-fashioned Lehigh-Army game from the old days," said Lehigh head coach Kevin Cassese. "We're used to playing games with 10 or less goals scored between the two teams and that's what we got today. It was really physical, really intense by both teams. There wasn't a whole lot of space for us to move; I thought their defense and goalie were excellent. If you would have come into this saying we're going to hold Army to six goals, I would think we had a pretty good shot of winning. But unfortunately, we couldn't get the job done on the offensive end."

Sophomore Craig Chick led the defense with game highs in groundballs (8) and caused turnovers (4) to improve his season totals to 27 and 18, respectively. Classmate Eddie Bouhall also had four groundballs while Matt Rimol tallied a groundball and two caused turnovers. Junior Danny Norris finished with four groundballs and a caused turnover. Over the last two games, Lehigh's defense has now allowed just 11 goals (nine even strength). Colgate entered last weekend's game coming off 15 goals at Bucknell, while Army scored 48 goals over its previous three games entering Saturday.

"The defensive effort was very strong today," said Cassese. "We're playing a system that is fitting for our personnel right now. We've got to figure out ways to get the ball to our offense a little bit more. We struggled in the clearing game, especially early, but got that figured out in the second half. Defensively, we're giving up shots we're comfortable our goaltender saving and I thought he played pretty well today, too."

Junior Andrew Pettit led the offense with two goals, his sixth straight multi-goal game to begin the season. He also set a career high with four groundballs. Senior Matt Raposo tallied a goal and assist while junior John Mehok scored Lehigh's other goal.

Army's Ted Glesener opened the scoring just over three minutes into the game, but Pettit answered with 10 seconds on the first-quarter clock, collecting a groundball following a save and finishing his 16th goal of the season.

Mehok scored a nifty unassisted tally early in the second quarter while Pettit added his second of the game at the 8:54 mark to give Lehigh a 3-1 advantage. However, not long after, the Black Knights scored three goals in the span of 37 seconds, the final two on the extra man. Army added a fourth straight goal just over a minute later at 6:09 to take a 5-3 halftime advantage.

The second half saw just two goals. Early in the third, Raposo scored following a behind-the-back feed from sophomore Tristan Rai, but Lehigh couldn't muster another goal and Army's David Symmes added insurance early in the fourth quarter to account for the 6-4 final.

Final shots were even at 27 while groundballs were even at 37. Sophomore Chris Kiernan finished with 10 saves for Lehigh while Army's A.J. Barretto stopped 12-of-16 shots sent his way.

The Mountain Hawks are set to head to No. 14 Stony Brook on Tuesday night at 7 p.m. before returning home next Saturday (Mar. 18) to host archrival Lafayette at 1 p.m.

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