Men's Lacrosse Falls to No. 8 Ithaca in Empire 8 Conference Game

ELMIRA, NY - Even with a one goal lead at half, the Soaring Eagles (2-11, 16 E8) were unable to hold off nationally ranked Ithaca College (13-2, 7-1 E8) eventually falling to Bombers by the score of 14-9 Tuesday afternoon at Campus Field.

Going into the contest Ithaca College was ranked eighth on the most recent United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association (USILA) national poll, and recently earned their fifth straight Empire 8 regular season championship having defeated conference rival Stevens Tech on Saturday.

Craig Lepiane would lead all scores with 4 goals and 2 assists. For the Soaring Eagles Sean Slater ’08 (Ashland, MA -- Ashland) and Martin O’Brien ’11 (West Springfield, MA -- Winchendon School) each had a hat trick and played a major role in the tough offensive showing put on by Elmira throughout the course of the afternoon.

EC jumped out to a 1-0 lead around the 10 minute mark following an O’Brien unassisted goal. Right after that, Ithaca netted two goals of their own taking their first lead of the contest before the end of the opening quarter. Kevin Bush would start the second quarter off with his second tally of the game 24 seconds in, on a man-up opportunity that carried over from the first.

Brandon Brennan ’08 (Manassas, VA -- Osbourn Park) brought the lead to within one on his only goal of the afternoon. The Bombers regained the two goal advantage less than 20 seconds later on a Brandon Rose tally. However, Rose’s point would be the last of the second quarter for Ithaca as Elmira tacked on three more goals before the end of the quarter giving them a one goal lead.

Rose ended the game as the top groundball earner collecting a total of 11 throughout the afternoon. In the cage Geoffrey Lane ’10 (Pennington, NJ -- Pennington School) came up with 8 saves in the first two quarters facing a total of 22 shots from the Bomber’s attack.

Going into the second half, EC knew that they would have to maintain their intensity if they were to hold onto their lead against one of the top team’s in all of Division III Men’s Lacrosse. Slater actually gave Elmira their only two goal lead of the afternoon at 12:21 in the third quarter. Assisting on the goal was Dan Frost ’10 (Bow, NH -- Bow).

Unfortunately, that lead would be short lived as the Bombers retook the lead scoring a total of three goals giving them the one goal advantage (7-6). Slater and Frost connected again tying the game at 7-7 with less than five minutes to play in the quarter. A pair of Bomber goals would close out the third.

The final 15 minutes of the contest saw Ithaca outscore EC 5 to 2, with three of the Bomber goals coming from Lepiane. Frost and O’Brien earned the final two Soaring Eagle goals.

Lane closed out the last two quarters earning 5 more saves, which brought his game total to 13.

Men’s Lacrosse will close out their 2008 schedule tomorrow afternoon at Campus Field against Alfred University at 4 p.m. in an Empire 8 conference game.

Ithaca College 14, Elmira College 9
Box Score

Ithaca College (13-2, 7-1 E8)   2   2   5   5   --   14
Elmira College (2-11, 1-6 E8)  1   4   2   2   --   9

Scoring: I-Craig Lepiane 4, Logan Bobzien 3, Kevin Vush 2, Brandon Rose 2, Matt Nelligan 1, Tim Pfeffer, Mike Giunta 1; E-Martin O’Brien 3, Sean Slater 3, Dan Frost 1, Mike Bialick 1, Brandon Brennan 1

Assists: I-Craig Lepiane 2, Matt Nelligan 2, Logan Bobzien 1, Kevin Bush 1, Chris Carman 1, Tim Pfeffer 1; E-Dan Frost 2, Martin O’Brien 1

Shots: I-46, E-25; Saves: I-David Gal 4 (56:48 8 goals against), Collin Meadow 0 (3:12 1 goal against), E-Geoffrey Lane 13