Box Score After nearly a month between home contests on Aurora University's Vago Field, the Spartan men's lacrosse team hosted the Lions of the College of Mount St. Joseph.
The Lions defeated AU twice in 2011, including knocking the Spartans out of the Midwest Lacrosse Conference Tournament.
Early in the contest, AU jumped out to a quick 3-0 lead in the first five minutes of play. Goal scorers included three sophomores,
Garret Rosiek,
Justin Bose and
Pat Diorka.
MSJ scored three of the next four goals to cut the host Spartans lead to 4-3 with 4:30 remaining in the opening period. From this point to halftime, the AU offense came to life, out-scoring the Lions 7-2 to give AU a commanding 11-5 halftime lead.
Leading the way offensively in the first-half were freshmen
Danny Loyall (two goals) and
Nolan Miller
(two goals) and sophomore
Garret Rosiek (goal and two assists). Freshman
Max Obriecht dominated the face-offs, winning 9-of-15 while also scoring a goal and dishing out two assists.
AU continued to control the pace of the game in the third period as the Spartans pushed their lead to 14-6 with 5:46 left in the period on the second goal of the game by Diorka.
From this point forward the visiting Lions awoke and went on an 8-0 scoring run over the next 16 minutes to tie the contest 14-14 with 4:41 left in the contest.
On the following face-off, Obriecht once again gained control to set up the Spartan offense. After some
patience, sophomore
Jack Meachum took a feed from Miller and found the back of the net for the go-ahead goal with 3:23 to play.
In the final minutes, sophomore goalkeeper
Adam Holka stepped up with two huge saves to seal the victory and give the Spartans a 15-14 win. The win moves AU to 6-2 overall and 2-0 in the MLC.
10 different Spartans scored goals on the afternoon, led by Loyall (three goals), Meachum (game-winning goal and three assists) and Obriecht (two goals and two assists). Obriecht was huge on face-offs, winning 18-of-29 and Holka ended up with 15 saves.
