(Story courtesy of Birmingham-Southern College)
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The Birmingham-Southern men's lacrosse team made history today, winning its first SCAC Championship by defeating Colorado College, 8-5, in Panther Stadium.
The Panthers move to 14-4 on the year, while the Tigers fall to 11-3. BSC will receive the SCAC's automatic bid to the NCAA National Championship, which begins Wednesday, May 9. The selection show will be Sunday, May 6, at 10 p.m. ET on ncaa.com.
Today marked BSC's first-ever victory against Colorado College, the two-time defending SCAC champion. The teams met last year in the SCAC final, when the Tigers won 8-6.
CC scored the first goal of the game less than a minute in, but BSC tied it up two minutes later with a goal by senior Jacob McPherson, assisted by freshman Erik Klein. The Panthers scored twice more before the end of the first period to go up 3-1, and out-scored the Tigers 2-1 in the second quarter, taking a 5-2 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Two minutes into the third quarter, sophomore Michael Sanicola scored what would be the game-winning goal off an assist from junior Matt Ivie. Colorado College scored after that to cut it to 6-3, but McPherson found the net again before the end of the quarter to put BSC back up 7-3.
The Tigers scored the first two goals of the fourth quarter, cutting it to 7-5 with five minutes left in the game, but CC would not score again, and the Panthers put one more on the board with 2:15 left, courtesy of freshman Conor Breslin, to go up 8-5 for the eventual victory.
McPherson and Ivie scored two goals apiece, and Klein recorded two assists. Junior Brennan Ott led with six ground balls and three caused turnovers.
For Colorado College, Henri Halle and Charles Curtis led with two goals each, and Kevin Wylie led with six ground balls. Zach Pierce had three caused turnovers.
Junior Andrew Huffman was impressive for BSC, recording 20 saves. Tiger keeper Zach Steedman had one.
Colorado College out-shot Birmingham-Southern 37-18 and had more ground balls, 40-29. They also won 13-of-17 face-offs and committed 26 turnovers, five fewer than the Panthers.
