On a cold and windy Sunday night, the club lacrosse team drove to nearby Kutztown University to play its third conference game of the year. This outing followed a round-robin tournament on Feb. 2o at Villanova against the hosting team and Rutgers.

Feeling energetic and hopeful after a motivating close loss to power five competitor Rutgers, the Leopards were looking to get their first win of the young season.

The Kutztown Bears had different plans as they took the Leopards to a sudden-death overtime. Lafayette fell 6-5 on a heartbreaker.

“The goal was a splash of cold water on the face,” junior offensive coordinator Harry Ricker said. “It was a heartbreaking overtime loss, however, I think we’ve proved that we can play with anyone in this league. It is now putting it together for a full forty-eight minutes.”

The game started quickly as the Leopards put in a goal within the first minute. A near miss not 30 seconds later grazed the goalie’s stick and bounced away from the goal, further heightening their momentum.

However, Kutztown struck back to tie the score at one. Lafayette had a chance to score as the first quarter came to a close, but they chose to play conservatively and keep the possession going into the second.

The Leopards then went on a scoring tear with two goals bringing the score to 3-1. The key to their success was their face-off win percentage as junior Jameson Waldron won 90 percent of the face-offs he participated in. This allowed the Leopards to control possession throughout the majority of the game.

Kutztown added a second before the second quarter ended, keeping the Bears in the game going into halftime. As the temperature fell below freezing, staying stretched became a necessity.

Lafayette and Kutztown traded goals out of the break, bringing the score to 5-4 going into the last five minutes of the game. The Leopards, riddled by injuries by this point, were unable to stop Kutztown as they put in a game-saving goal to tie the score up.

With one minute to go cries of, “the minute is about heart and will to win, it is why we play the sport,” from the junior vice president Noah Wilk echoed across Kutztown’s field.

The Leopards had possession to begin the last minute, but a costly delay of game penalty gave Kutztown the ball. The Bears were able to run out the clock and as they chose to take their chance with a sudden-death overtime.

In overtime, Lafayette put a couple of shots on goal, but they were all stopped before Kutztown threw in the final goal of the game. The Bears walked off with a winning score of 6-5.

“I think we really just need to learn and move on from it but use this as a motivating factor,” Ricker said. “We’ve been dealing with some commitment issues on the roster with people not showing up to practice. Next week comes another opportunity with a big game against [the College of New Jersey].”

“We’ve lost two of three games in heartbreaking fashion in overtime,” captain Alex Oliver said. “We have the talent and hustle we need, we just need to put it all together when we play [The College of New Jersey] on Sunday to tally one in the win column.”

The Leopards will look for their first win of the season next week as they play their first home game of the year against The College of New Jersey at 7 p.m. on Fisher Field. The game will be a fundraiser for the charity, One Love.