March 20, 2012
UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - The No. 17 Penn State men's lacrosse team dropped its third straight game with a 9-5 loss to No. 10/11 Lehigh at the Penn State Lacrosse Field on Tuesday evening. The Nittany Lions, who played their sixth ranked opponent of the season, fell to 3-4 overall with the non-conference setback, while the Mountain Hawks improved to 8-1.
Senior attackmen Jack Forster (Jenkintown/2g) and Matthew Mackrides (Newtown Square/1g, 1a) led Penn State with two points each. Both junior midfielder Nick Dolik (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.) and sophomore attackman Shane Sturgis (Downingtown) added a goal, while freshman midfielder Kyle Zittel (Eden, N.Y.) recorded an assist.
Senior defenseman Ryan McGarvey (Lower Gwynedd) and freshman midfielder Michael Richards (Skaneateles, N.Y.) recorded four ground balls each to match the game high. Sophomore goalkeeper Austin Kaut (Morton) accumulated nine saves, while Mountain Hawks netminder Matthew Poillon made 10 stops.
The Nittany Lions out shot Lehigh, 30-28, and won the ground ball battle by a 22-20 margin. Penn State secured 13-of-17 faceoffs and went 1-for-4 with the extra man, while Lehigh was 4-for-7 on extra-man opportunities.
The Nittany Lions jumped out to a 2-0 lead less than five minutes into the game. Just 3:44 into the contest, Forster opened the scoring off a feed from Mackrides. Sturgis extended the Penn State lead with 10:24 remaining when he tallied off Zittel's assist.
The Mountain Hawks responded with three straight markers to take a 3-2 second-quarter advantage. Dante Fantoni cut the Penn State lead in half with a goal midway through the first, and Roman Lao-Gosney tied the game 13 seconds into the second with a man-up goal. Fantoni netted his second marker of the game with 10:46 left in the half to give Lehigh its first lead of the game before Dolik answered with a man-up goal with 5:38 remaining.
In the third quarter, the Mountain Hawks scored the frame's only goals, including two extra-man tallies, as they took a 6-3 advantage. Patrick Corbett scored with 9:21 left in the stanza before Adam Johnston and Lao-Gosney added man-up markers later in the frame.
Lehigh and Penn State alternated goals in the fourth, beginning with David DiMaria scoring for the Mountain Hawks 11 seconds into the frame. Forster brought the Nittany Lions to within three with his second goal of the game 47 seconds later. Johnston gave the Mountain Hawks an 8-4 lead with a man-up goal with 3:27 left before Mackrides answered 16 seconds later. Lehigh's Noah Molnar closed out the scoring with 2:12 remaining in the game to account for the 9-5 final.
The Nittany Lions will return to action on Saturday (March 24) when they travel to Saint Joseph's for a CAA matchup at 1 p.m.