By Cooper Sutton
Sports Editor
The men’s lacrosse team completed perhaps its most important and thrilling win on the road last weekend, taking down No. 13 Army. With the last-minute 8-7 win, the Bison remain undefeated in Patriot League play and now are ranked 12th nationally.
The monumental win over Army pushed the Orange and Blue record to 4-0, tied atop the league with Colgate. By taking down Army, the team took a major step towards its goal of attaining the first seed in the league tournament.
“Beating Army is always huge,” midfielder Ryan Klipstein ’11 said. “You know that things will come down to the fourth quarter and sure enough this was the case this year. Yet again the team found a way to win but also discovered plenty of mistakes that will be improved upon over the rest of the season.”
The Bison played a far from perfect game. They were outshot 33-25, failed to clear the ball eight of 24 times and lost the face-off battle. The team was lifted by the dazzling play of goalie Kyle Feeney ’13, who made 11 saves in the game. Four of those saves came in the final minutes of the fourth quarter to ice the game.
The game was also tight throughout the first half. Tied at 4-4 in the second quarter, Kyle O’Keefe ’13 scored his first goal of the season. The Bison would take this one-goal lead into the locker room for halftime.
The Bison came out strong in the third quarter with two straight goals, scored by Mike Danylyshyn ’11 and Peter Burke ’14. The three-goal lead was short-lived, with the Black Knights scoring two goals of their own to come within one goal at the end of the third quarter.
Chase Bailey ’13 scored the final Bison goal of the day halfway through the final quarter on a man-up play. The Black Knights would not respond until the final minute of the game, and their comeback attempt proved to be too little too late.
Bailey and Todd Heritage ’14, registering two goals apiece, led the Bison scoring attack. Bailey also assisted two goals, giving him four points, the most of any Bison player.
With only two games remaining on the year, the Bison will have to face two league rivals in Lehigh and Colgate. These two games will undoubtedly decide the first place team in the Patriot League.
“The next two games against Lehigh and Colgate are important for the PL tourney seeding and hosting, as well as for national seeding later on and a possible at-large bid,” Klipstein said. “Regardless of these implications, we had set ‘undefeated in the Patriot League’ as a goal from the very beginning. Accomplishing this goal is our number one motivation.”
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