The St. John Fisher College men's lacrosse team held on to defeat visiting Nazareth College 13-12 on Wednesday in a pivotal Empire 8 Conference matchup at Fisher's Growney Stadium. 

With the win, Fisher, playing in its eighth year as a varsity  program, sets a new College-record for victories, improving its overall record to 12-2 on the year. The win also lifts Fisher's Empire 8 record to 4-2 and drops Nazareth College to 6-5, 3-2.

The victory also marks the first time the Cardinals have beaten their East-Avenue rival in men's lacrosse. Nazareth, who has won three national championships in its program's history, had won the first six meetings, including a 21-2 drubbing in 2004 – Fisher's third year of men's lacrosse. The talent-gap has clearly closed in recent years, however. Last spring, Nazareth scored the only goal of the fourth quarter and defeated the visiting Cardinals 7-6.

“This is obviously a big win for us and beating Nazareth is another step forward for our young program,” says head coach John Johnson, now in his fourth year at the collegiate level after leading Canandaigua Academy to over 350 wins in his 27-year career. “We made some mistakes throughout the game that could have cost us, but we played well in the offensive end and our defense made a big play at the end to seal the win.”

The Cardinals led by as many as six goals at 11-5 midway through the third quarter and led 13-8 56 seconds into the final quarter, but the Golden Flyers refused to go away and scored the game's final four goals, including Joe Jacobs-Ferderbar's second of the game with 4:25 left, making the game a one-goal difference.

Nazareth kept possession in the Fisher end for the final 3:20, taking nine shots during that span, but none found the back of the net, as junior goalie Jon Cortina made three of his 14 saves in the final two minutes, including the last one coming with nine seconds left from point-blank range on Naz's Greg Wagner.

Senior All-American faceoff specialist Dave Wood set a Fisher single-game record for both face offs won (24-4) and ground balls (16).   It was Wood who helped put Fisher up for good just seven seconds into the contest, as the senior scooped up the opening draw and passed the ball to Chris Schmidt, who was credited with the goal, after the pass deflected off his stick.

Nazareth, who trailed 4-1 midway through the first quarter, pulled back to within a goal in the closing moments of the opening stanza. After goalie Todd Dermody stopped Connor Henderson on a breakaway with 20 seconds left, the Golden Flyers made it 4-3 on a goal with .5 seconds remaining from Erinn O'Hara.

The Cardinals, however, regained the momentum late in the second quarter with two goals in the final 90 seconds to take an 8-4 lead into the locker room.

Dave Malone and Chris Schmidt each finished with two goals and one assist, while Kyle Denhoff and Mike Cummins each scored two goals. Ryan Schmidt finished with one goal and one assist, while Connor Henderson, Jeff Price and Paul Leonhard each scored a goal.

Fisher will return to action at 1 p.m. on Saturday and will host Alfred University in the final regular-season home game of the 2009 season.