GETTYSBURG, Pa. – Eastern Men's Lacrosse dropped a tough 10-6 game to nationally ranked host #5 Gettysburg Saturday afternoon. The Bullets used a four-goal first quarter to jump out to an early lead and earn the victory.

"We just didn't show up for the first quarter, and you have to play four quarters against teams that good," said Head Coach Kevin Wallace. "Can't spot a nationally ranked team four goals and then decide to play it is too hard to come back from a deficit like that."

Gettysburg (3-2) jumped out to an early 5-0 lead scoring four times in the first quarter. The Bullets tallied their first goal less than two minutes into the game when Mike Distler tallied an unassisted goal to give Gettysburg a 1-0 lead. Distler struck again exactly two minutes into the second quarter to stretch the lead to 5-0 before Eastern got on the scoreboard.

Eastern (2-3) answered with four straight goals of its own, three in the second quarter alone. Grant Smith tallied his first goal of the season finishing off a Bryan Goetz pass to make it 5-1 with just under 11 minutes left to play int he first half. Goetz then netted back-to-back goals of his own just over three minutes apart from each other to make it 5-3 heading into the break.

Desmond Decker then pulled the Eagles within one early in the third quarter when he tallied a man-up goal to make it a 5-4 game. Two straight goals by Gettysburg stretched the lead back to three at 7-4 with less than a minute to play in the third quarter. Goetz then notched his third goal of the day to make it a two-goal game, 7-5, heading into the final quarter of play.

"Proud of the way we fought back to make a game out of it," continued Wallace. "Our guys saw that they are capable of playing with tough teams and that when we relax and don't play not to make mistakes, we can play some really great lacrosse."

In the fourth quarter, however, the Bullets scored less than a minute in to make it 8-5. The score remained that way until the final four minutes of play when Gettysburg tallied two goals in less than 30 seconds stretching the lead to 10-5 with under three minutes left to play. A goal by Mark Buannic with 17 seconds left to play made the score final at 10-6.

Goetz finished the game with three goals to lead all Eastern players. Jameal Hadeed finished the game with ten saves while his counterpart Tim Brady made 11.

"We have to start doing the little things right, those things are what are hurting us right now," concluded Wallace. "Clearing the ball and not turning the ball over on offense, those are the things that can make the difference between a win and a loss and right now we just aren't doing them correctly. We will learn from this loss and move on because we have another tough opponent this week."

Eastern hosts Sewanee on March 16th at 3:30 pm at the Haverford School.