Early Lead Lifts Lacrosse to 8-7 Win Over Furman

Saturday, March 2

Greenville, SC

10:00 AM

University of Utah

3-3

Furman

2-4

Utah

Furman

Photo by: Tim Haslam

Early Lead Lifts Lacrosse to 8-7 Win Over Furman

3/2/2019 1:56 PM | Lacrosse

Box Score

GREENVILLE, S.C. – The Utah men's lacrosse team earned its third win of the season with an 8-7 victory over Furman on Saturday afternoon.

Utah led 4-0 after the first quarter and took a 6-0 lead before Furman scored its first goal of the game. The Utes led 6-2 at halftime and 8-3 after three quarters. The Paladins chipped away at the Utah lead in the fourth quarter with four goals and the Utes held on in the final minutes for the victory.

Josh Stout scored his fifth hat trick of the year with a team-high three goals. Branden Wilson and James Sexton each scored twice and Gabe Mein also had a goal. Aaron Fjeldsted had two assists while Seth Neeleman also had an assist. Liam Donnelly recorded a career-high 17 saves on the day. Neeleman and Cambere led Utah with four ground balls each.

Head coach Brian Holman said after the game that he heavily involved the players in decision making during the game.

"That's part of our process, is to get these guys to grow up and start to get more comfortable in making in-game decisions, more comfortable in being more aware of what's going on on the field," Holman said. "We told them this week that we were going to put more onus on them to get organized on offense and call what they want to call. We had a timeout situation towards the end of the game and Coach [Adam] Ghitelman asked the defense if they wanted to play zone or man, and they wanted to play man, and we played man. They take ownership and they believe in what they're doing, that's the real power in this whole thing."

Mein started off Utah's scoring with 11:15 left in the first quarter to get the Utes on the board and Wilson followed with a goal at the 9:31 mark. Stout and Wilson scored back-to-back late in the quarter to give the Utes a 4-0 lead. In the second quarter, Sexton scored just over a minute in on an assist from Fjeldsted and Stout scored his second of the day with 7:01 left in the quarter for Utah's 6-0 lead. Furman took advantage of penalties to score two goals late in the second quarter and the Utes held a 6-2 lead at halftime.

Make it 2-0 Utes over Furman on this goal from Branden Wilson! #goutes pic.twitter.com/UEn29Gspqh
— UtahLacrosse (@UtahLacrosse) March 2, 2019

James Sexton keeps the scoring barrage going as we start the second quarter, Utes lead Furman 5-0! #goutes pic.twitter.com/tGOwBuaY2U
— UtahLacrosse (@UtahLacrosse) March 2, 2019

Stout scored his third of the day with 10:31 left in the third quarter. Furman scored its third goal of the game with 7:41 left and Sexton answered a little over a minute later to keep the lead at five.

Josh Stout with the first goal of the second half gives him a hat trick today! Utes leading Furman 7-2! #goutes pic.twitter.com/rfoeGNn0Zr
— UtahLacrosse (@UtahLacrosse) March 2, 2019

Furman scored a goal early in the fourth quarter before a two-minute, three-goal barrage cut the Utah lead to 8-7 with 3:54 remaining in the game. It was the last shot that Furman was able to get off as the Paladins turned the ball over twice in the final two minutes.

"Just continue to play," Holman said his message to the team was in the fourth quarter. "We were just trying to break the game down into small chunks and play three to five minutes at a time. I think we did that. We told them that Furman wasn't just going to roll over and go away. I like the way we handled it. It wasn't pretty, but who cares."

The Utes return home next weekend, hosting Bellarmine on Saturday, March 9, at 1:00 p.m. MT.