BUFFALO, NY--In the first home game in men's lacrosse history, the Mavs gave the crowd a very intense game but came out on the losing end of the NEAC Semifinal game losing to Hilbert (20-17).
The game started out very fast with six goals scored in the first five minutes of the first quarter. Both the Mavs and the Hawks had three goals a piece after trading runs. The Mavs jumped out to an early 3-0 lead mainly due to
Drew Belica, who had a goal and two assists during the opening run.
Hilbert quickly answered Medaille's run with a run of their own. After being down 3-0, they scored the next five goals to take a 5-3 lead half way through the first quarter. The teams would then trade goals back and forth the rest of the way in the first quarter and end the quarter tied at seven.
The second period was more of the same. The teams traded goals back and forth for much of the period with no team having a lead greater than three until the final twelve seconds of the half. Hilbert scored late to take a 15-11 lead into halftime.
The second half was a battle of halves. Hilbert wasted no time scoring as they netted their first goal of the second half exactly one minute in to the third quarter. They would go on to add four more unanswered goals as they started the third period on a 5-0 run before
Brock Levick scored for Medaille with 3:57 left in the quarter.
Levick's goal began to shift the momentum for the Mavs as they controlled the fourth quarter. After his goal, the defensive intensity picked up along with the Mavs offense. Medaille dominated the faceoff circle and their play led Hilbert to numerous penalties in the fourth quarter. Medaille would take advantage as they scored twice being a man up along with adding three additional goals to have a 5-0 run of their own.
The Mavs defense was stellar in the fourth quarter as Hilbert managed only two shots in the fourth quarter while the Mavs had nine total shots, scoring on five of them. The Mavs also led the Hawks in ground balls in the fourth quarter 3-0 along with faceoffs 5-0.
Unfortunately, after all the Mavs accomplished in the fourth quarter, the deficit was too much to overcome.
Offensively, the Mavs were led by
Scott Johnston who led the team with (5) goals and added (1) assist.
Jake Engleman added (4) goals and (1) assist while Belica finished the day with (3) goals and (4) assists. Levick finished with (3) goals and (1) assist.
On defense, the Mavs were led by
Julian LaDelia who finished the day with (7) ground balls and Engleman chipped in an additional three.
Sean Cunningham and
Eric Roth added (1) ground ball each. In goal,
Sean Kettles did everything he could to keep the game close and finished the game with (13) saves.
The Mavs (8-6, 5-2) will look to build off of their 2013 season as they head into 2014.