SUWANEE, Ga. - Top seeded Colorado College won the inaugural Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference men's lacrosse tournament championship with a hard-fought 8-6 win over second seeded Birmingham-Southern. It marked the second consecutive SCAC championship for the Tigers.
AROUND THE SCAC
In the inaugural SCAC championship,
Birmingham-Southern advanced to the championship
game, where they lost 8-6 to top-seeded Colorado College. The
Panthers end the season at 9-7 after going 6-1 in conference play.
Sophomore Matt Ivie, who, as of April 17, was tied for first in the
nation in goals per game, led the team overall with 65 goals and
eight assists for 73 points. Sophomore Brennan Ott led with 81
ground balls and 101 face-off wins, and senior Ben Schaefer led
with 29 caused turnovers. BSC's goalkeepers (junior Tim Trockenbrot
and sophomore Andrew Huffman) combined to post an 8.74 GAA and 165
saves.
Centre did not play this last week. The
Colonels (3-9 overall, 2-5 SCAC) close out their inaugural season
on Tuesday, May 5 at 4:30 p.m. against Oberlin.
Colorado College earned its
second consecutive conference title by posting victories over
Southwestern and Birmingham-Southern in the inaugural SCAC
Championship last weekend. Riding a three-goal performance by
freshman attackman Jake Smith, CC overcame an early 2-0 deficit to
claim a 10-4 victory over the Pirates in the first semifinal. Jack
Kreitler and Steve Rijo each struck for a pair of goals in the
second half, while Carson Christman scored once and set up two
other tallies. CC didn't get on the scoreboard until Christman
converted on his own rebound with 12.9 seconds left in the period.
Freshman goaltender Zach Steedman made five saves for Colorado
College. Senior midfielder Jamie Mauk found the net three times to
help the Tigers come from behind to defeat BSC in the title game.
He scored twice in a span of 1:39 late in the third period to turn
a 5-4 deficit into a 6-5 lead. Seven seconds after the Panthers
tied the game at 6-6, senior midfielder Buck McKenna won the draw,
grabbed the ground ball and went in alone to net the first
game-winning goal of his career. Steedman made only five saves for
Colorado College, but came up with a huge one on BSC’s Matt
Ivie which would have cut CC’s lead to 8-7 with 6:29 to play.
Senior defender Zach Hoisington tied his career high with five
caused turnovers and three ground balls as the CC defense allowed
just one goal in the second half for the second game in a row.
Colorado College, which will receive the program's first-ever NCAA
tournament bid on May 8, plays host to Mesa State College next
Saturday in the first of three non-conference games to close out
the regular season.
Hendrix did not play last week.
Millsaps did not play last week.
Oglethorpe did not play this past week. At 3-9,
the Petrels will shoot for their fourth win in their final contest
of the season versus Hanover on Wednesday.
Sewanee faced Birmingham-Southern twice this week
and came out on the losing end both times. The Tigers squared off
with the Panthers on Tuesday in a make-up game to determine seeding
at the SCAC Championships. BSC jumped out to a quick 7-1 lead
before Sewanee crawled their way back in to make it 9-8 Panthers
just five minutes into the third quarter. But the visiting Panthers
held on, scoring seven of the last nine goals, to take home a 16-10
victory. Jack Thomasson and Michael Morris each notched three goals
in the loss, while goalkeeper Tommy Healy collected 18 saves for
the Tigers. In Friday’s rematch, BSC jumped out to a 2-0 lead
before Sewanee took a 5-4 lead early in the third quarter. Over the
next quarter and a half, the Tigers and the Panthers traded goals
before Sewanee found itself trailing 8-7 with 2:52 to play.
BSC’s Matt Ivie netted his fourth goal of the night with just
10 seconds left to put the game out of reach and give
Birmingham-Southern the 9-7 win. Thomasson and Carson Pfiefer each
picked up two goals for Sewanee, while Healy earned 14 saves in the
loss. The Tigers are 6-8 overall and will face Berry College
Saturday in their final contest of the season.
Southwestern, anchored by goalie Chris O'Quain
who posted an astounding 25 saves, was narrowly defeated 10-4 by
SCAC-powerhouse Colorado College in the semifinals of the first
SCAC tournament Friday evening. O'Quain's 25 saves was not only a
new SU record, but ranks him in the top five in the nation this
season. SU's young Pirate squad had a perfect game plan in place to
take on the seasoned Tigers and executed it to perfection, taking a
two goal lead late in the first quarter. Colorado was able to score
five goals the rest of the first half to take a slight 5-3
advantage into halftime and then pulled away in the second half and
slowed down the Pirates to hand SU the 10-4 loss. The Pirates end
the season with a 7-9 overall record, 4-3 in the SCAC in just the
program’s second year.
For the complete SCAC Men's Lax Weekly for Week 9,
click here.