Ithaca Defeats Stevens In Empire 8 Semifinal
ITHACA, N.Y. – The second seeded Ithaca College men's lacrosse team outscored third seeded Stevens Institute of Technology by two goals in the third quarter and it was the decisive margin in an 11-9 Ithaca victory on Wednesday, April 29 at Higgins Stadium in an Empire 8 tournament semifinal game. With the victory, Ithaca advances to the conference championship game at Nazareth on Saturday, May 2 at 4 p.m against the top-seeded Golden Flyers.
Nick Hammell grabbed the early lead for the Ducks with an unassisted goal four minutes into the game before junior
Matt Ferentini made it 2-0 with a man-up goal five minutes later. Ithaca bounced-back with two unanswered goals by Jake Cotton and Jack Shumway to close the first quarter.
Andrew Scrutchfield put the Ducks back on top in the second quarter's opening minutes, but Justin Bird came off the bench with the answer to make a 3-3 game with just under 12 minutes to play in the opening half.
Connor O'Shea and Hammel found the back of the net to give Stevens a 5-3 lead at 9:15 but a mere :14 seconds later John Januszkiewicz scored his first of four goals on the day to cut the lead to 5-4.
The Ducks built back a two goal lead off a score from sophomore
Connor McKeon with eight minutes remaining in the half. Ithaca was once again able to answer scoring twice over the final seven minutes on goals by Januszkiewicz and James Manilla to tie the game at six going into the break.
In the third quarter,
Januszkiewicz scored his third goal for Ithaca to give the Bobmers their first lead of the day. Stevens John Boutureira answered less than a minute later to tie the game 7-7.
Stephen Morrell scored for the Bombers with 1:23 left in the quarter and Januszkiewicz scored again with just four seconds left to give Ithaca a 9-7 lead headed to the fourth quarter. The Bombers maintained their lead over the final 15 minutes to earn the victory.
Stevens pulled to within 9-8 on a man-up goal by Scrutchfield in the opening minute of the fourth quarter, but back-to-back goals from
James Manilla and
Kaelan Fitzpatrick stretched the margin to three goals in favor of the Bombers.
Michael Maroon tallied the final goal at the 1:48 mark to try and keep Stevens' hopes alive, but it wasn't enough.
Ithaca goalkeeper
Scott Sidnam made six saves, while Stevens goalkeeper Austin Boyd had 12 saves. The Bombers held a 40-32 advantage in shots, a 42-33 advantage in ground balls and Ithaca won 16 of 23 faceoffs.
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