(Stories courtesy of the Colorado College and Birmingham-Southern College websites)
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - The top two seeds, Colorado College and Birmingham-Southern College, advanced to Sunday's title match with victories Friday evening in semifinal matches played on the campus of Birmingham-Southern College. Official Website
GAME 1 - COLORADO COLLEGE 14, SEWANEE 9
Colorado College used a dominating performance in the second half to record a 14-9 come-from-behind victory over Sewanee in the first semifinal game of the 2012 Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference Championship on Friday afternoon in Birmingham, Ala. Box Score
The top-seeded Tigers (11-2) advance to Sunday's title match where they will face host Birmingham-Southern College with a berth in the NCAA Tournament on the line. The second-seeded Panthers defeated Centre College, 22-7, in the second semifinal.
"With this being the first dogfight we've been in for a while, we were gripping our sticks a little tight in the first half," head coach Sean Woods said. "We were nervous. At halftime, I told our guys to take a deep breath and start doing the things we had been doing every day this week and in every game this year and we would work our way back for the victory."
Trailing 6-4 after 30 minutes, it didn't take long for his players, in particular a pair of upperclassmen, to prove they were paying attention to their first-year mentor.
Junior midfielder Charles Curtis started the comeback one minute into the third quarter and senior attackman Hunter Sprole tied the game just 1:39 later.
Moments after CC tied the score, Sewanee had a pair of chances from point-blank range, but sophomore goaltender Zach Steedman came up with a pair of huge saves. That allowed the Rocky Mountain Tigers to take their first lead since early in the game on a tally by freshman midfielder Henri Halle midway through the frame.
"Steedman went from having a rough first half to playing the best half he's had all year," Woods said. "He was lights out, and a couple of the saves were in tight. We scored a couple of goals to tie it up, and then he made a couple of big saves in succession right after that to give us some momentum."
The University of the South pulled even on a goal by junior midfielder James Millard with 5:05 to play in the quarter, but junior attackman Steve Rijo put Colorado College ahead to stay and freshman midfielder Nick Ahrens gave his team a two-goal cushion for the first time with 49 seconds to play in the quarter.
Sewanee scored a pair of goals in the fourth quarter, but each time CC answered immediately with at least two of its own.
Senior attackman Jack Thomasson cut the Tennessee Tigers' deficit to 9-8 with 12:15 remaining in the game, but senior attacker Moses Taylor and sophomore defender Will Harris scored 79 seconds apart to give Colorado College an 11-8 lead with 9:36 to go.
Sewanee got a momentum boost when sophomore attacker Michael Morris struck for a man-down marker with 8:01 to play, but Sprole and sophomore attacker Jake Smith each found the net in a span of 12 seconds to give CC a 13-9 lead.
Sophomore midfielder Jack Kreitler iced the contest with an unassisted goal just 1:43 before the final horn.
"Hands down, it was the best second half we played all year," Woods said. "We didn't make very many mistakes, our goalie stepped up and Sayre Thomas started winning faceoffs."
Senior long-stick midfielder Zach Pierce caused five turnovers and grabbed a team-high eight ground balls. Thomas won eight of 12 faceoffs in the final 30 minutes and collected five ground balls.
Steedman was credited with nine saves, all of which occurred in the second half.
Sophomore goalie Tommy Healy finished with 16 saves for Sewanee, which finished the year with a 12-5 record.
"Sewanee is probably the best No. 4 seed this tournament has ever had," Woods said. "You could argue they were the No. 2 seed, but this is the way it played out. We embraced playing them tonight. We knew we would have to win two tough games.
"We needed a tight game to get our competitive edge back. It's been a while since we had a dog fight, and since we responded well to adversity, we proved to ourselves we can win tight games. We didn't play our best ball early, but we really turned it around when we had to and that will certainly help us on Sunday."
GAME 2 - BIRMINGHAM-SOUTHERN COLLEGE 22, CENTRE COLLEGE 7
An early unassisted goal from freshman Erik Klein with just over twelve minutes left in the first quarter gave the Birmingham-Southern men's lacrosse team a lead they would never relinquish on the way to a 22-7 victory over Centre College on Friday night at Panther Stadium.
The win, which takes the Panthers to 13-4 in the 2012 campaign, also earned them a berth in the SCAC Men's Lacrosse Championship final game on Sunday in their first year of eligibility to participate in post-season play.
Klein would be the catalyst of the Panther's fast start to the game. Birmingham-Southern tallied ten of the game's first eleven goals, with Klein scoring four of them and assisting on another two. Game-high scoring honors would belong to junior Matt Ivie who scored seven goals on 14 shots.
Centre would fight back in the second quarter and rally back with five unanswered goals to make the score 11-7 with 5:02 left in the first half. The four-point gap ended up being the closest Centre would be for the rest of the game as Birmingham-Southern responded with two Ivie goals, both with two of Klein's game-high five assists, to close out the half. The Panthers tacked on nine more unanswered goals in the second half to earn the win.
The offensive production provided all the support the Panther goalie tandem of junior Andrew Huffman and freshman Conor Perine would need as the two stopped 13 of the 20 Centre shots-on-goal of the evening.
Sunday's championship tilt will begin at noon at Panther Stadium when the second-seeded Panthers square off against top-seeded Colorado College.
