By Peter Levine ’16

Following a 15-6 loss at Army March 23, the Lafayette men’s lacrosse team was able to pull off a dramatic double overtime victory against High Point last Wednesday (March 27).

With 44 seconds remaining in double overtime, freshman Kevin Wanke lifted a shot over multiple High Point defenders and past redshirt sophomore goalie Austin Geisler  to lift the Leopards to a 10-9 victory.

Leading 9-7 in the fourth quarter of the game, Lafayette allowed two High Point goals in the final 1:29 of the fourth quarter sending the game to overtime, tied at nine goals apiece.

After a scoreless five-minute overtime period, the teams went on to sudden death. Until Wanke scored the game-winning goal, no shots on goal were taken.

“It’s a huge win,” Wanke said.  “We finally got an opportunity to advance the ball deep into High Point’s territory, and we made good passes to get the opportunity for the game-winning shot.”

Sonny Round ‘15 led Lafayette with three goals and one assist for a total of four points.  Morgan Westby ‘16 and Brian Bock ‘15 netted two goals each for the Leopards.

Lafayette jumped to an early 3-0 lead with goals by Cory Scheuerle ‘15, Sonny Round ‘15 and Jake Mann ‘14.  The Leopards led for most of the first half and went into halftime with a 5-3 lead over the Panthers.

High Point’s Bucky Smith ‘14 and Mitchell Dupree ‘16 notched the only goals of the third quarter, tying the score at five headed into the fourth.  After freshman Michael Messenger shot a point blank goal past goalkeeper Jake Hyatt ‘14 with 13:45 left to play in the game, Round, Bock and Westby put together a series of three goals to give Lafayette an 8-6 lead with 5:40 remaining.

After blowing the lead by allowing goals from freshmen Bryce Parietti and Dan Lomas, the game went into sudden-death overtime.

It was the first game all season to go into an extra period of play for the Leopards.

Lafayette’s next game is Saturday, April 6 at home against Holy Cross (5-5 overall and 1-3 in conference play).  The Leopards (3-7, 0-3) will look for their first win in Patriot League this season.

Hyatt gave the Leopards’ key to victory on Saturday:

“We need to get off to a good start, and settle in right off the bat on the defensive side of the field,” the goalkeeper said. “We can’t always be climbing out of a hole, which puts a lot of pressure on our offense.”