• Sophomore Peyton Garrett (2g, 1a) and junior Nick Basile (1g, 1a) had career days in the victory.
• Senior Dan Lomas, junior Dallas Bridle and sophomore Connor Robinson – the squad’s three healthy Canadians – all tallied two goals.
• Freshman Tim Troutner made 14 stops in goal to go along with a caused turnover to earn the win.
HIGH POINT, N.C. – The High Point University men’s lacrosse team’s offense broke out in a huge way to lead the team to a 15-10 win over Mercer on Sunday in Vert Stadium.
The contest was knotted up at 4-all three minutes into the second quarter before HPU went on a 4-0 run to build a lead it wouldn’t relinquish.
On the afternoon, eight different Panthers (5-5, 1-2) tallied at least two points as the squad earned its first Southern Conference victory of the year. Meanwhile, the loss moves Mercer to 3-6 overall and 1-2 in league action.
“I’m proud of the way the guys came out after back-to-back losses,” head coach Jon Torpey said. “I like the way we responded and I thought we played well on both ends of the field. I think we played with speed and urgency today, we changed some things in the midfield lines, but all in all we just did everything at a better tempo today.”
Leading the offensive explosion was junior Michael LeClair (2ga, 1a) whose goal at the 9:36 mark of the first quarter extended his scoring streak to 36 games. Likewise, senior Matt Thistle (1g, 2a) recorded three points while sophomore Peyton Garrett provided a career-high three points (2g, 1a).
Defensively, the Panthers were anchored by 13 caused turnovers and 14 saves from freshman Tim Troutner. Junior Tanner Landstra and freshman Griff Caligiuri each posted two caused turnovers as freshman Joel Schwarz registered four ground balls.
The team’s imports from north of the border buoyed the offense accounting for six goals. HPU received two goals apiece from senior Dan Lomas, junior Dallas Bridle and sophomore Connor Robinson.
At the face-off ‘X,’ freshman Alex Woodall went 11-21 with four ground balls while redshirt-senior Adam Seal scooped up five on the day. High Point earned a +6 margin (32-26) in the contest.
In the midfield, juniors Sean Harrison (2g) and Nick Basile (1g, 1a) and sophomore T Moyer (1g) rounded out the scoring.
Mercer dented the scoreboard first before goals from Bridle, Harrison and Basile made it 3-1 (7:51, 1st). The Bears answered back five minutes later, but Robinson upped the lead to 4-2 with 1:51 left in the opening frame.
However, the visitors wouldn’t go quietly scoring the first two goals of the second quarter to knot the score at 4-all. This time HPU answered with a 4-0 run capped by back-to-back goals from Lomas to build an 8-4 edge (10:30, 3rd).
Then, Chris Baxa scored to pull the visitors within three (8-5, 8:31) before Robinson and Thistle responded to make it 10-5 with 3:11 left in the third. However, the Bears mounted one more run scoring two more third-quarter goals to send the game to the final period with HPU leading 10-7.
In the first five minutes of the fourth frame Garrett and Harrison each notched goals to give the Panthers breathing room (12-7, 9:52).
From there, Mercer was able to cut the deficit back to four on two occasions, before Moyer (3:27) and Garrett (2:19) capped off High Point’s scoring. Baxa added his third goal of the day with 1:37 to play (15-10), but the Bears couldn’t score again as HPU earn the win.
The Panthers are back at home next Saturday to take on Bellarmine at noon in Vert Stadium.