High Point Men’s Lacrosse Falls to Jacksonville in Overtime, 12-11

• Junior Tim Troutner Jr. set a new a program and SoCon Championship record with 22 saves on the night.
• Senior Connor Robinson tallied four goals and an assist to lead the HPU offense.
• Freshman Asher Nolting broke the SoCon single-season points record with two assists passing Air Force’s Chris Walsch with 66 points on the year.

RICHMOND, Va. – The High Point University men’s lacrosse team dropped its first overtime game of the year, 12-11, to Jacksonville on Thursday night in the Southern Conference Championship semifinals.

The Panthers (6-8) came out hot building a 10-4 lead seconds into the third quarter behind a record-setting performance by junior Tim Troutner Jr. in goal. However, the Dolphins (8-6) chipped away going on a 7-1 run over the next 29 minutes to send the game to overtime.

Jacksonville earned the first offensive possession of the overtime with a face-off win and converted the opportunity into a goal to earn the 12-11 victory and advance to Saturday’s championship to face Richmond.

“I am extremely proud of our nine seniors,” head coach Jon Torpey said. “This is not the way we wanted to send them out, but their resilience, love and buy-in are the reason we got here tonight. At 0-6 they could have packed it in, but they did the complete opposite and turned a young team into regular season champions. We will be forever grateful for the contributions this group has made to our program and High Point University.”

Troutner was outstanding throughout the night making 22 saves, which broke the program and SoCon Championship single-game record, to go with three ground balls.

Leading the offense, senior Connor Robinson scored four first-half goals while also adding an assist. The New Westminster, British Columbia native finishes his career fourth in HPU history with 93 points.

Freshman Asher Nolting, the SoCon Offensive Player of the Year, dished out two assists to move past Air Force’s Chris Walsch for the SoCon single-season scoring record with 66 points.

Joining Robinson, fellow Canadian seniors Adam Dickson (2g, 1a) and Chris Young (2g) both tallied multi-point performances. Rounding out the goal scoring, sophomores Davis Sampere and Ricky Koehler and freshman Koby Russell all netted a goal apiece. Meanwhile, senior Jason Ashwood, sophomore Dalton Sulver and freshman Clayton Krol were all credited with assists.

At the face-off ‘X,’ Sampere went 7-of-17 and junior Brandon Savoie went 2-of-9 as the teams both picked up 28 ground balls. Despite just a 43-41 margin in shots, Jacksonville put 34 on goal compared to HPU’s 20.

Young put the Panthers on top early scoring the first two goals of the contest. But Jacksonville answered with a 3-0 run before another Canadian, Robinson, netted back-to-back goals to make it 4-3 at the end of the first.

In the second, the Dolphins scored on their first possession before the momentum swung back in the direction of the Purple & White. Over the final 6:43 of the half, Robinson scored twice while Russell, Koehler and Dickson all scored to send HPU to the break up 9-4.

While the offense stole the show in the second, it was Troutner who starred in the third stopping seven shots in the frame. However, the shots kept coming and by the end of the frame the Dolphins had cut the lead to three, 10-7.

Jacksonville continued its run scoring at the 11:57 mark of the fourth to make it a two-goal game. Dickson, though, stopped the bleeding with 9:47 to play. But that would be High Point’s final goal as JU scored at 3:33 and 2:22 to even the score.

Sampere won the face-off with 2:22 to play, but the Panthers were unable to convert the opportunity. From there, Troutner made two more saves to send the game to overtime before the Dolphins scored the walk-off winner.