It was not a pretty game, but the Eagles got a result. Eastern University Men's Lacrosse started slowly, but broke open a close contest with five straight second half goals to win 8-4 at Misericordia University. Michael Ryan scored three times, and Nick Mandia registered two goals and two assists.
Ryanscored twice in the opening five minutes to give the Eagles a 2-0 lead,but the Eastern squad struggled to connect passes in the attacking zoneand was unable to dodge theMisericordia defenders to increase the difference. The Cougars closed the gap to 2-1 with just 82 seconds left in the first period.
Neither team was able to find any momentum in the second period as the respective goalies played well and both teams struggled in the cold and windy conditions. First year attack Matt Wagner stretched the Eastern advantage to 3-1 withjust under three minutes to play on a great low to high strike on theright side. The Eagles were unable to hold the two goal advantage forlong Sean McGuigan scored on a man advantage situation just 70 seconds later to pull the hosts to within a goal at 3-2.
Zach Rivest made seven of his fifteen saves in the first half as both teams fired fourteen shots. Eastern Coach Brandon Childs was not pleased withhis team's effort or execution in the first half, and the first yearhead coach gave his players very specific instruction at the break.
Early on, it did not seem that the Eastern players were heeding their mentor's words as Misericordia's Zach Buckley dodged central and tied the score with a high shot just over two minutes into the half. The Eagles then responded with more aggressiveness in the attack and more decisive movement off the ball to change the game.
Ben O'Donnell scored his 19th goal of the year on a nice feed from behind the crease from Mandia on a two-man advantage situation to give the Eagles the lead for good. Twice it looked as though the Eagles had stretched their advantage to 5-3 on Matt Wagner goals, but both goals were called back on crease violations.
Finally, Mandia was able to get free in transition with less than a minute to play in the period to put the Eagles up 5-3. Eastern kept the momentum going at the start of the fourth period as they took advantage of the last of Misericordia's seven penalties in the third period with a man-up goal by Wagner 42 seconds into the fourth. O'Donnell set up the goal.
The Eagles scored twice more in the next four minutes to stretch their advantage to 8-3 with ten minutes to go. Ryan scored the first after coming off a nice screen from Wagner and catching a Mandia pass right on the doorstep. Mandia then closed out Eastern's scoring with his team-best 24th goal of the year.
Misericordia scored a man-up goal withnine minutes left. The Eagles spent nearly the rest of the game in aman-down situation as they were flagged for six penalties in the finalten minutes of the game.
Childs said of the game, "Withthe exception of a couple moments, we really did not play well, andthere was nothing really pretty about the game, but we needed the win.We held on and picked up our second straight road game in theconference."
The Eagles return home for a critical league contest against Elizabethtown College on Thursday afternoon.
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