LEXINGTON, Va. – The seventh-ranked Washington and Lee men's lacrosse team suffered its first loss of the season on Saturday afternoon in a 15-9 tussle against third-ranked Gettysburg at Wilson Field.
The Bullets (4-0) entered the second half with an 8-4 lead before Kieran Ward boosted the margin to five goals at the 11:58 mark. Neither side scored for the next eight minutes before W&L (4-1) senior
Adam Lamberti (Bel Air, Md. / McDonogh) answered. That goal sparked a 3-0 run for the Blue and White, which saw another goal just nine seconds later from first-year
Colin Beatty (Summit, N.J. / Summit) and a junior
Leif Smith (Virginia Beach, Va. / Norfolk Academy) to junior
Alex Brown (Norwalk, Conn. / Taft School) connection with 1:07 left.
Gettysburg rebounded with a goal with 20 seconds remaining in the third, before scoring four consecutive additional goals in the fourth quarter to take a 14-7 lead with 5:48 remaining. Smith and junior
Sam Mannino (Fair Haven, N.J. / Rumson Fair Haven) added the final two W&L goals at 3:03 and 1:49, respectively, before GC's Kyle Howard notched the game's final tally in the closing seconds.
Sophomore
Joey Allen (Berwyn, Pa. / Conestoga) helped W&L dent the scoreboard first in the game at the 9:35 mark of the first quarter. However, the Bullets scored five of the contest's next six goals into the early minutes of the second quarter to take a 5-2 lead. Seniors
Henry Holliday (Washington, D.C. / St. Albans) and
Will Schnorr (Paoli, Pa. / Conestoga) closed the first-half scoring for the Generals, while GC's Aidan Wykoff and George Raymond gave the team the 8-4 halftime advantage.
Smith paced the W&L offense with three points on one goal and two assists. Schnorr found the back of the net twice, while Allen rounded out the multi-point performances for the Generals with a goal and an assist. W&L sent three players to the face-off X during the game, none of which fell below a 50-percent win rate. Junior
Will Bou (Chevy Chase, Md. / Landon) won 8-of-16, senior
Matt Gallagher (Lynchburg, Va. / E.C. Glass) was successful on 5-of-8 and junior
Nick Tussing (Owings Mills, Md. / Gilman) claimed 2-of-3 for a team total of 15-of-27 (.556).
Senior
Boots Lackey (Alexandria, Va. / The Heights School) finished the game as the W&L leader in both ground balls (4) and caused turnovers (3), with senior
John Mills (Menlo Park, Calif. / Menlo-Atherton) tying Lackey with three turnovers caused. Mills added a pair of ground balls, and senior
Harris Hubbard (Madison, Miss. / Highland Park (Texas)) capped off the three Generals with multiple ground balls and caused turnovers with two each.
In net, first-year
Ryan Boyd (Chatham, N.J. / Chatham) (3-1) was tagged with the loss after he made 10 saves across the 60 minutes of play.
The Bullets were led on offense by Raymond and Ward. Raymond finished with three goals and three assists for a game-high six points, while Ward totaled five points on three scores and two helpers. Howard contributed three goals as well, with Wykoff tallying three points on two goals and an assist.
Jonathan Moshe picked up a game-high seven ground balls for the Bullets, as he went 11-of-26 on face-offs. Frank Barbera picked up four and caused a turnover, and Raymond added three ground balls himself. Colin Laforty claimed the win between the pipes after he made 11 saves in 60 minutes.
Both teams finished the day with 41 shot attempts, but Gettysburg edged out the Blue and White in attempts on goal (25-20). W&L held a slight advantage in ground balls (28-27) and forced the Bullets into two more turnovers than it committed (17-15).
The Generals will return to play on Wednesday when they host Ithaca at 7:00 pm at Wilson Field.
