Box score
CHESTER, Pa. --- Elizabethtown College secured the top seed in next week's Middle Atlantic Conference men's lacrosse tournament with a 10-8 win at Widener University in the regular-season finale Saturday afternoon.
The Blue Jays (12-3 overall, 10-1 MAC) tied the program single-season record for victories and won the first regular-season conference title in the nine-year history of the program. Elizabethtown will host a conference semifinal game Wednesday at Wolf Field, with the championship set for next Saturday.
Aaron Weber led the Blue Jays with two goals and four assists as Elizabethtown erased a 5-4 deficit with five unanswered goals over a 16-minute span from the tail end of the second quarter to the closing seconds of the third quarter.
Andrew Janusz scored a pair of goals to lead the Pride (7-9 overall, 6-5 MAC), which earned the sixth seed in the MAC playoffs and will play a first-round game at third-seeded Lycoming College Monday afternoon.
Elizabethtown took an early 2-0 lead on goals by
Josh Dougherty and
Jon Day, but the Pride came back to tie the score as Janusz and Mike Vandegrift picked up goals. Weber pushed the Blue Jays ahead 3-2 with 18 seconds left in the first quarter, only to see JJ Hoeffler score with three seconds to go to even the contest at 3-3.
The Blue Jays moved ahead 4-3 with 8:51 left in the first half on a goal by
Shawn Corcoran, but Widener took its first lead of the day on back-to-back goals by Nick Fluharty and Shawn DeHaven, the latter with 6:20 remaining in the first half.
From there, it was all Blue Jays for the next 25 minutes as
Cory Boushell and
Keith Staulters scored 26 seconds apart late in the second quarter to give Elizabethtown a 6-5 lead at halftime.
The Blue Jays scored all three goals in the third quarter, as Day,
Donnie Krausse and Weber found the net to extend the Elizabethtown lead to 9-5.
Widener trimmed the deficit to 9-7 on goals by Ryan Shewell and Janusz, the latter with 9:55 to play, but Corcoran scored with 2:32 remaining to push the Blue Jays on top 10-7. Cory Malampy set the final margin with a goal with 55 seconds left for the Pride.
Day and Corcoran joined Weber with two goals for the Blue Jays, who were outshot 34-29 by the Pride and lost 14 of the game's 21 faceoffs.
Brent Campbell led the Blue Jays with four ground balls, while
Dustin Mulcahey and
Shakir Saunders shared the team lead with three caused turnovers.
Fluharty went 12-for-19 on faceoffs and collected nine ground balls for the Pride, while Dave Simcox picked up six ground balls and had four caused turnovers.
Brendan Corcoran made 10 saves in goal for Elizabethtown, while Widener's Bobby Schluter finished with nine stops.