GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. - In one of the more exciting men's lacrosse home games in years on Saturday, Davenport was able to come back from down 16-12 with 5:40 left in the game by scoring the final five goals in a 17-16 win over Walsh. The win gives the Panthers sole possession of second place in the Great Midwest Athletic Conference standings, and it was the third straight win for Davenport. The two teams battled the entire game and put up many goals. The 33 combined goals was the highest-scoring game of the season.
Walsh took advantage of Davenport penalties in the first three quarters and ended the game 5-of-9 in extra-man opportunities. The Cavaliers built a five-goal lead at one point (14-9) with 6:30 left in the third quarter after a man-up goal by Toby Olynyk. The lead was 16-12 before the Cavaliers were hurt by some late penalties of their own. DU would score four straight man-up goals in a span of two-plus minutes. The big penalty was a two-minute infraction against Mike Sawulak with 4:26 remaining. DU would score three times on that chance was Sawulak had to serve the full two minutes. Then the tying goal would come with 1:02 to go as
Jayden Ashley scored his 19th goal of the season after a one-minute tripping call against Luca Grilli.
Davenport won a face-off after the tying goal and then it was
Luke Fritz scoring his 22nd goal of the season unassisted with 24 seconds left to seal the win. DU got yet another face-off win on a violation and ran out the remaining seconds.
Sean House entered in goal with 8:49 left in the third quarter after Walsh took a 12-8 lead. He would finish the game to get his first win in goal this season. He made four saves in 23:49 of game action.
Antonio Hart got the start and did very well with 12 saves in 36:11 of game action.
The offensive heroes included
Luke Fritz with a team-high and career-high five goals on six shots on goal and 12 total shots.
Dylan Fallon,
Luke Eichbauer, and
Jayden Ashley all scored three times for the Panthers.
Charlie Fritz finished with two goals and one assist.
Ty Woods scored once to conclude the goal scorers on the day.
Logan Flaherty was exceptional in the face-off area winning 28-of-35 and scooping up 19 ground balls to tie his season high. Davenport was able to cause seven turnovers and
Tyler Burd had two of them. DU had a total of 58 shot attempts with 36 on goal. Give credit to Walsh goalkeeper Alex Movshin who had 19 saves in the contest for the Cavaliers. AJ Harrison led all goal scorers with seven on 10 shot attempts, which were all on goal.
Davenport will continue G-MAC play next Saturday when they host Davis & Elkins (2-11, 1-4) at the DU Turf Field beginning at 12:00 PM.
