GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - The Davenport men's lacrosse team controlled their own destiny on Tuesday afternoon needing a win over Lewis to secure their first trip to the Great Lakes Valley Conference Tournament. The top four teams in the final standings advance to the postseason tournament and with today's 17-9 loss against the Flyers, the Panthers are 1-3 in league play while Lewis improved to 2-3. Lewis is done with their conference games for the regular season and DU will take on second place Rockhurst in their regular season finale on Saturday at noon.
It was a brilliant start for the Panthers as they scored the first two goals coming from
Keelan McKouen and
James Johnston in the first four-plus minutes of the contest. Lewis however would score the next five goals to end the first quarter and stretch into the second quarter.
Davenport got to within 5-4 as
Jayden Ashley scored a man-up goal at 11:40 and Johnston scored at 9:51 from
Trevor McDonald. The Flyers scored three of the next four goals including man-up goals by Jack Speers and Luke Schroeder. The Panthers trailed 10-6 at halftime as Nate McLean scored just 20 seconds before halftime from Evan Clement.
Trailing 10-7 in the third quarter, the Panthers saw Lewis score seven out of eight goals to extend their lead to 17-8 with 6:59 left in the game. Ashley scored his third man-up goal of the game at 10:28 of the fourth quarter to break up the scoring run by Lewis. McDonald concluded the scoring at 2:41 of the fourth quarter on a man-up goal assisted by Ashley.
Both teams had several man-up opportunities with DU finishing 5-for-9 and Lewis going 2-for-7. Lewis controlled the face-off circle going 21-of-29 which led to their scoring run. Davenport did a good job of keeping their turnovers under control with 14. Lewis totaled 47 shots including 25 shots on goal compared to 24 total shots and 14 shots on goal by the Panthers.
Clement finished with three goals and four assists for Lewis. Paul Ruskoski added three goals and two assists. Drew Andre scored a goal and added three assists. Ashley finished with three goals and one assist. McKouen added two goals and one assist with three groundballs. Johnston scored three times and had a pair of groundballs.Â
