EMMITSBURG, Md. – For the second-straight year the Utah lacrosse team dropped a tough one-goal game to Mount St. Mary's, falling 11-10 in overtime on the road.
Utah took a 3-0 lead in the first period and held a 5-1 lead early in the second period before Mount St. Mary's scored six unanswered goals to take a 6-5 lead at halftime.
Trailing 9-7 after the Mountaineers scored a goal early in the fourth quarter,
Aaron Fjeldsted scored a goal with 7:46 left in the game and
MJ McMahon tied the game with a goal with 3:13 remaining. Although Mount St. Mary's re-took the lead with 2:29 left,
James Sexton scored the equalizer with 1:20 left in regulation to push the game to overtime.
In overtime, although the Mountaineers won the faceoff, Utah took advantage of a turnover to get the ball back and two shots by the Utes were saved before the game-winning goal with 1:07 remaining in OT.
"We didn't deserve to win today, we had way too many turnovers and obviously tough day on face offs, and we just couldn't handle that possession differential very well," head coach
Brian Holman said. "At the end of day we had opportunities to win game and didn't execute at the level we need to. It comes back to consistency – we had a good first quarter, a horrendous second quarter and it was pretty much even after that. We have to learn to continue to try to be more consistent with our play. Credit to Mount St. Mary's they played probably their best game of the year so far. Onward and upward for us, we will get some practice time in on Monday and gear up to play a really tough UMass team. We'll continue to find ways to get better. It's a disappointing day but we are proud of the effort. We didn't quit, we fought hard to the end but we just didn't execute at level we need to."
The Utes struggled with face offs, going just 4-of-25 on the day, and had 19 turnovers.
Colin Burke led the Utes with three goals and an assists for a team-high four points. Fjeldsted scored two goals and
Jimmy Perkins and
James Sexton each had a goal and assist for two points each.
Branden Wilson,
Nick Hapney and
MJ McMahon also tallied goals while
Dominic Mata had an assist.
Samuel Cambere led Utah with six ground balls and had two caused turnovers. Mata had a team-high three caused turnovers while Hapney had two caused turnovers.
Seth Neeleman recorded four ground balls and a faceoff win (1-of-7).
Liam Donnelly and Zion DeChesere continued to split time in goal with each playing a half and recording nine saves.
Utah will remain in the east for Spring Break, facing Massachusetts on Long Island on Saturday, March 14.