BETHLEHEM, Pa. — For the second straight year, Lehigh broke open a close halftime score to run away from Navy over the third and fourth quarters. On Saturday, the Mountain Hawks used a 9-0 second-half run to turn a 5-4 deficit into a 13-5 lead, on the way to a 14-6 victory in the Patriot League opener for both sides.
“Lacrosse is a game of execution,” Navy coach Joe Amplo said. “Our inability to clear (13-of-19) and our lack of stopping them at the faceoff X were certainly contributing factors. It was a 4-4 game at the half and we had every opportunity to step up and execute. Lehigh out-toughed us today. They were the better team.”
The Midshipmen scored four straight first-quarter goals to take a 4-2 lead, showing no rust from an extended time off due to the norovirus affecting its team.
But from there, Lehigh’s faceoff game limited Navy’s possessions. And when the Mids got the ball, the Mountain Hawks’ defense stood tall, anchored by goaltender James Spence, who stopped 11 of the final 13 shots sent his way, including a number of spectacular saves.
“I thought James was bad in the early going, but the one thing about James is that he’s really mentally tough,” Lehigh coach Kevin Cassese said. “If he gets off to a bad start, he can typically correct it. I also thought the defense did a really good job responding. They saw he was struggling early and they were able to tighten it down after the first few went in.”
The teams split the eight first-quarter faceoffs, but the Mountain Hawks won 15 of the 16 over the final three quarters. Conor Gaffney won 11 of 14 with nine ground balls – breaking the Patriot League career ground ball record in the process (reaching 389 career GBs after Saturday’s game). Mike Sisselberger won eight of 10 with five ground balls.
The effort came against a Navy team that had won 70.6 of faceoffs over its first three contests.
“It wasn’t necessarily Mike Sisselberger the faceoff man and Conor Gaffney the faceoff man,” Cassese said. “It was Gaffney and Sisselberger, the faceoff unit. I was really proud of their effort. They were working together, they were talking to their wings. They were completely bought in from the beginning to the end and we’re going to need that every game moving forward.”
Navy’s Tyler Perreten was the story of the first quarter, scoring with 9:50, 9:16 and 8:19 on the clock – all on the extra man – to give the Mids a 3-2 advantage.
After Ryan Magnuson scored at the 7:10 mark, the Mountain Hawks did not allow a goal for the next 26:59 and just two over the final 52:10. Lehigh would allow just two even strength goals all game.
Trailing 5-4 early in the third quarter, the Mountain Hawks staged a 9-0 run which included six different goal scorers. Not long after, Andrew Eichelberger’s career-high fourth of the game with 19 seconds remaining rounded out the scoring.
Perreten’s three goals led Navy’s offense while Henry Rentz finished with three assists. Ryan Kern made 10 saves between the pipes for the Mids.
Lehigh returns to action next Saturday when it hosts Holy Cross. Navy hosts Colgate the same day.