Late fourth quarter surge leads Denver over Lehigh men’s lacrosse, 10-4

The last time that the Lehigh men’s lacrosse team started out its season 2-6 was in 2009. However, they find themselves in that spot once again this year.

Lehigh hung in Tuesday’s game against No. 5/6 University of Denver at Banko Field for the first three quarters, but the Pioneers eventually overpowered and won 10-4.

This is Lehigh’s fifth loss in a row after starting the season 2-1. While this game wasn’t a Patriot League game, the Hawks are still only 1-3 in the conference, losing most recently to Navy 13-12.

Despite a 12-goal performance at Navy, the team’s offensive production has been relatively low this year. It scored just four goals against Denver and only three goals against Villanova University, who was its opponent during spring break. Lehigh ranks tied for 52nd in the nation in goals per game (8.50) out of just 69 Division I teams.

Lehigh started this game hot though, jumping out to a quick 3-0 lead in the first quarter behind goals from senior midfielder Kurt Kaunas, junior midfielder Alex Eaton and junior attackman Reid Weber.

“Obviously, we were excited to be up 3-0 after one quarter,” coach Kevin Cassese said. “I thought it was probably the best quarter that we’ve played all season, so that was a positive.”

The biggest momentum shift came right before the beginning of the second quarter, when Lehigh was flagged for having an illegal stick, which resulted in a three-minute nonreleasable penalty. Denver used that momentum to go on a five-goal run, shutting out Lehigh in the quarter.

Neither offense could get anything going in the third quarter, which ended in a scoreless tie. Weber scored his second goal of the game in the beginning of the fourth quarter to cut the lead to one, but Denver put together another five-goal run in a three-minute span towards the end of the fourth quarter to seal the win.

In a game that featured many Canadians on both teams, it was Denver’s Canadians that were more effective. Lehigh senior attackmen Dan Taylor and Patrick Corbett combined for just one point in the game, which was an assist by Taylor. It was the lowest combined output from the two players in a game where both played.

Taylor gave a lot of the credit to the Denver defense, saying they had a good gameplan.

“They slid quick, they recovered fast, they were big, strong, physical defenders,” Taylor said. “We got some good shots, we had some good, long possessions, but at the end of the day we didn’t put our shots away and I think that was the difference today.”

The Hawks mixed up a few things offensively, using Kaunas as a midfielder dodging from behind the net as opposed to from up top, where midfielders usually dodge from. Kaunas scored the first goal of the game in a situation like this.

This resulted in Weber playing a little bit up top as an attackman. Cassese said the change was to mix things up a bit to see what worked. He attributed Kaunas’s explosiveness as a dodger as a key reason for switching it up.

“When you lose games, you try some different things because if you keep doing the same things and you’re not winning, then that’s kind of the definition of insanity,” Cassese said.

Cassese also mixed up the lineup by resting senior goalie Matt Poillon for the game. He decided to give freshman goalie Adam Sawicki the start, the first of his Lehigh career. Sawicki finished the game with 11 saves.

“Adam’s a hell of a player,” Cassese said. “He showed that tonight and he’s been showing that in practice. To me, I look at him and it’s not surprising at all because he plays like that every day in practice.”

One area of play that the Mountain Hawks have really struggled in is faceoffs. In this game, Cassese decided to start with freshman midfielder Matt Ernst as the faceoff guy, and then mixed it up with the usual faceoff man, sophomore midfielder Casey McAdam. The two players combined for just 5-for-15, an even lower percentage than the team’s 40 percent clip for the season.

Lehigh’s schedule won’t get any easier, as they have to face No. 18/19 Army on Saturday, another key Patriot League matchup. Army will look for revenge after Lehigh was victorious in the semifinals of the Patriot League Tournament last year, ending Army’s season.

“Every time we play Army it’s a battle, and I’m sure they’re going to be angry coming off of last year,” Cassese said. “We need to find ourselves some motivation coming into Saturday, and I’d like to think that our record would be motivation enough to get our guys ready to play.”