Saints Fall to Middlebury in NCAA Tournament, 15-11
by:
Tara FreemanCP Rahe '10 scored a pair of goals against Middlebury College.
May 9: The No. 16 St. Lawrence University men's lacrosse team saw its 2009 season come to an end on Saturday in Middlebury, VT, as the No. 7 Panthers of Middlebury College used a 7-0 third quarter to grab control of the contest en route to a 15-11 victory in the Second Round of the NCAA Tournament.
St. Lawrence (13-4) bows out of the NCAA Tournament in the Second Round for the fourth consecutive season. Meanwhile, Middlebury advances to the national quarterfinals after improving to 14-2.
"Middlebury is such a talented team offensively, and we gave them too many quality looks in the third quarter," said St. Lawrence head coach Mike Mahoney. "I'm proud of the way we battled back after giving up seven goals. It showed the character this team has had all season long. It was just too deep of a hole to dig out of against one of the best teams in the country."
The game started well for the Scarlet and Brown, as the visitors built a 3-0 lead in the opening minutes of the game. Senior John Allen opened the scoring at 2:11, while classmate Alex Slauson made it 2-0 after a great spin move opened up a lane in front of Middlebury goalie Peter Britt. Junior Scott Smith would cap the run with a goal at 9:00 for the 3-0 cushion.
Middlebury would jab back in the final minutes of the first quarter, as Matt Ferrer and Jack Masur scored to cut the home team's deficit to one goal at the end of 15:00 minutes at 3-2. Senior standout midfielder Mike Stone then evened the score at 3-3 with his 51st goal of the season to open the second quarter scoring.
Junior CP Rahe would give the Scarlet and Brown its lead back at 4-3, though Chris Teves would answer for the Panthers only 49 seconds later. The two teams exchanged a pair of goals to end the first half scoring, as Masur and Tom Petty beat St. Lawrence netminder Thomas Hollingsworth while seniors Collin Moon and Peter Carroll scored for the Saints to send the game to halftime knotted at 6-6.
However, the third quarter belonged to the Panthers, who used a flawless transition game and a stingy defense to shut down St. Lawrence and take a 13-6 lead after 45:00 minutes. Jeff Begin opened the second half scoring on a fluke goal that deflected off of a St. Lawrence defenseman's stick to put the home team on top 7-6. That was only the beginning of the scoring for the Panthers, though, as Skyler Hopkins, Pete Smith, David Hild, Stone, Masur and Petty all added tallies to give the nationally-ranked Panthers a dominant seven-goal advantage.
Trailing by a sizeable margin with their season on the line, St. Lawrence would make one final push to get back into the game. Smith would add his second of the game with an assist going to Moon to bring St. Lawrence back to within five, while Moon, Rahe and junior Nick Woodhull would score goals less than five minutes apart to cut the team's deficit to three goals at 13-10.
With the clock working in their favor, Middlebury put the game away with back-to-back goals by Matt Virtue and Pete Smith followed by a one-minute penalty assessed to St. Lawrence with less than four minutes to play in the game. Though Moon would score his third goal of the game in the final minute to cap the scoring at 15-11, Middlebury was able to run out the clock and advance in the 2009 NCAA Tournament.
Middlebury improves to 4-6 against St. Lawrence in the all-time series and remain unbeaten against the Saints with Coach Mahoney at the helm (2-0).
"I thought we were able to find some success early on by working the ball around the perimeter and earning quality bids," added Coach Mahoney. "Once they got rolling in the third quarter, we began to panic and the score got away from us a bit. Overall, though, I congratulate Coach (Dave) Campbell and his team and wish them the best of luck throughout the remainder of the tournament."
Saturday's game is the final contest for the Saints' lacrosse team's Class of 2009, which includes Slauson, Moon, Carroll, Hollingsworth, P.J. Santora, Carl Festa, Chris Farr, Kyle Benton, Nick Stefans, Tom Guest and John Allen. These 11 seniors won four Liberty League regular season and tournament titles and played in the NCAA Tournament Second Round four straight years.