ST. DAVIDS, Pa.—Eastern University Men's Lacrosse broke a 2-2 first quarter tie with five consecutive goals in the second quarter and never looked back against the King's College Monarchs on Wednesday afternoon. The No. 20 Eagles overcame a slow start to cruise to a 17-4 victory and advance to the Freedom Conference Championship for the fourth year in-a-row.
Grant Ferguson and Eric Waibel each recorded a hat trick, midfielders Kyle Gillam, Dez Decker and Bryan Mizell each scored twice. Tim Lamb, Andrew Travers, Bryan Goetz, Jake Billera and David Darling all scored as well. Darling also dealt out four assists to become Eastern's all-time assists leader with 99 career assists.
Much like the first time these two teams met in the beginning of the month, King's scored early in the first quarter to take the initial lead. In the first meeting, King's became the first conference team to hold a lead over the Eagles at the end of a quarter. On Wednesday, the game was knotted at 2-2 by the end of the first quarter.
Eastern's four All-Conference Second Team midfielders scored Eastern's first four goals. Billera and Travers each scored in the first quarter. Lamb gave Eastern the lead 3-2 with 8:59 to play in the second, and Mizell upped Eastern's lead 1:23 later. Kyle Lansey recovered a ground ball on the defensive end, cut up field and found Mizell open in the middle of the field for the transition goal.
Eastern's attackmen hadn't been able to squeeze anything past Monarchs' goalie William Pokorny. Pokorny already had 10 saves before Grant Ferguson tagged him for a goal on a crease roll with 6:23 remaining in the second. Pokorny finished with 17 saves.
An unnecessary roughness penalty on the goal put Eastern man-up and Gillam took advantage of the power play, netting his 14th goal of the season 30 seconds into the penalty. Ferguson gave the Eagles a five-goal lead with 3:49 to go in the half. Darling had recovered a ground ball off the pipe that bounced past midfield. Darling took advantage of the quick field switch and zipped a pass to Waibel. Waibel and Ferguson formed a two-on-one fastbreak and Waibel flipped it over to Ferguson who juked high and finished low.
King's chipped at Eastern's lead with a goal to end the first half and start the second, but Eastern crushed any idea of a comeback with 10 unanswered goals to end the game.
Monarch faceoff specialist Nick Foley won nine faceoffs, but the Eagles' tandem of Matt Lee and Joe Palo combined to win 14-of-23 attempts.
Eastern senior defender Jordan Norris helped back up his conference Defensive Player of the Year selection with a game-high six caused turnovers as well as four ground balls.
Eastern (14-3) looks to win the Freedom crown for the fourth straight year on Saturday at 1 p.m. when they faceoff against Misericordia University.
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