HAMPDEN-SYDNEY, Va. – Senior
Hillis Burns tallied nine points and led an 11-0 run with six points, as the No. 10 Washington and Lee men's lacrosse team ran away with a 20-6 win at Hampden-Sydney on Saturday afternoon.
HOW IT HAPPENED:
Burns had a hand in each of the W&L's (8-2, 4-0 ODAC) first three goals of the day, scoring once and assisting junior
James Haley and senior
Jack Elliott for a 3-1 lead through 9:05.
The Tigers kept it close by scoring three times over a seven-minute span, with a Haley and senior
Joey Allen goal mixed in, to make it a 5-4 W&L lead at the 6:38 mark of the second. However, 52 seconds later, Burns scored his first of four straight goals to put a jolt into the W&L offense. His third goal in that span gave the team an 8-4 halftime lead, before the team scored seven additional goals after Burns' fourth to run the score to 16-4 by the 12:18 mark of the fourth quarter.
Hampden-Sydney's (6-4, 1-1 ODAC) Patrick Hanes ended the run with a score with 10:22 left in the game, but the Generals continued to find the back of the net for four of the game's final five goals to put an exclamation point on the win. Senior
Gavin McClernan had two points across the team's final five goals, with junior
Byron Newman, first-year
Thomas Garcia and junior
Jack Booth rounding out the scoring.
TOP PERFORMERS:
Burns ended the game with a career-high tying nine points on five goals and four assists, in what was his fourth game this season with five or more points. Haley followed with four points (2g, 2a) and four ground balls, with Allen and Elliott both at three points. McClernan, junior
Elliot Cohen and first-years
Jack Dalton and
James Meyer also contributed two points each in a dominating offensive display.
Sophomore
Tyler Spano led three W&L face-off men who combined to win 25-of-30 face-offs on the day. Spano went 14-of-16 with 10 ground balls, sophomore
Thomas Moxley won 6-of-7 with four ground balls and first-year
Israel Mikkelson was successful on 5-of-7 with three ground balls.
Junior
Chris Datz led the W&L defensive unit with five ground balls, followed by juniors
Andrew Lehman and
Nick Garcia with three and two, respectively. Five different Generals each caused one turnover, including first-year goalie
JJ Kim, who stopped 6-of-11 shots in 51:32 of action to pick up the win in his first collegiate start.
Hanes paced the Tigers' offense with four points on a goal and three assists, with Kavin Wood (2a) and Cole Palmer (2g) at two points each. Tyler Steele led the defense with three caused turnovers and three ground balls, plus two ground balls and caused turnovers from Conor Kilfeather. Will Palmer was the H-SC goalie of record. He allowed 15 goals in 47 minutes of action with only seven saves.
NOTEWORTHY POINTS:
Burns' nine-point performance vaulted him past Will Keigler '10 (212) and Dave Warfield '75 (213) and into sixth place on the program's all-time points list. In 56 career games, Burns has 215 points on 130 goals and 85 assists. He needs two more goals to pass Warfield for sixth-most goals in program history and three more assists to crack into the program's career Top 10.
Another 14 face-off wins for Spano on Saturday has him within six of tying Sandy Harrison '88 for the eighth-most in program history. Spano is winning face-offs at a blistering rate of 73.4 percent (141-192) this season, which is eighth-best in Division III men's lacrosse this season.
The Generals' win over the Tigers on Saturday marked their 19th-straight regular season ODAC win, with 14 double-digit victories in that span.
TEAM STATS:
The final shot totals favored the Blue and White, 46-32, with shots on goal at 29-12 in favor of the Generals, as well. W&L doubled up the Tigers on ground balls (46-23), and both teams were successful on their clears at better than 87 percent.
UP NEXT:
The Generals will step out of conference play one final time as they host No. 4 Christopher Newport on Monday night at 6:00 p.m. in the annual Lacrosse the Nations Cup game.
Nestled in the mountains of Virginia, Washington and Lee University is a proud member of NCAA Division III and the Old Dominion Athletic Conference. Founded in 1749, W&L is the ninth-oldest college in the United States and a top-ranked liberal arts university. With over 500 student-athletes in 24 varsity sports, the Generals have celebrated over 265 conference championships. Learn more about the Blue and White by visiting www.generalssports.com or on social media at @WLUGenerals.
