The St. John Fisher College men's lacrosse team ended a two-game skid and reached double-digits in the win-column with a 12-11 win at Rochester Institute of Technology on Wednesday in a pivotal Empire 8 Conference matchup. With the win, Fisher improves to 10-2 overall and 3-2 in the Empire 8, while R.I.T., who beat Ithaca on Saturday, falls to 6-4, 1-2.
Freshman Connor Henderson, playing in just his third game at the collegiate level, scored a career-high four goals and added one assist. Junior Dave Malone finished with one goal and four assists, while Ryan Schmidt totaled four points on one goal and three assists. Chris Schmidt added two goals and one assist, while Jeff Price also scored twice. Paul Leonhard and Mike Cummins also tallied goal the win.
Junior goalie
Jon Cortina stopped 11 shots, including four in the fourth quarter.
Dave Wood won 12-of-22 face offs and led the Cardinals with six ground balls.
Fisher was a stellar 4-for-7 on extra-man advantages and recorded a season-high 58 ground balls. The Cardinals did, however, struggle at times, committing 31 turnovers and only successfully-cleared the ball 18 times on 32 attempts.
“We made our fair share of mistakes, but we played well enough to win,” said head coach
John Johnson, now in his fourth season with the Cardinals. “We definitely have some things to work on in practice and have to cut down on some of the mental mistakes, but going on the road and winning at R.I.T. isn't easy and we'll enjoy the victory for at least tonight.”
Fisher never trailed in the game and took the lead just 61 seconds into the contest with
Chris Schmidt scoring on a pass from Malone.
The Tigers battled back and tied the game at 2s, 3s, and 4s, before the Cardinals scored the final three goals of the first half (the final two coming from Henderson) and took a 7-4 lead into intermission.
Fisher led by as many as four at 9-5, but the Tigers refused to go away. R.I.T. scored as time expired at the end of third quarter to make it 9-7 and pulled to within a goal at 9-8 just 18 seconds into the final quarter.
Fisher scored the next two goals to go back up 11-8, but R.I.T. again answered pulling to within one goal with 3:40 left. The Cardinals scored a man-up goal with 2:54 remaining to go back up two at 12-10 before R.I.T. scored with 1:14 remaining to make to make it 12-11.
The Tigers regained possession with nine seconds left, but failed to get a shot off in the closing moments.
