Junior goalie Jamie Faus (Lakeville, Conn.) made 11 saves and allowed just five goals in 50:23 to jump-start the fourth-seeded University of Denver men’s lacrosse team’s largest come-from- behind victory under head coach Bill Tierney, a 12-11 win over fifth-seeded North Carolina in the NCAA Quarterfinals on Sunday afternoon at Lucas Oil Stadium. Denver is the first team in Men’s Lacrosse Championship Quarterfinal history to win after trailing by five goals or more.
With the win, the Pioneers advance to their second Final Four in three seasons, and will face top-seeded Syracuse next Saturday.
Senior Chase Carraro (Louisville, Ky.) won 17-of-26 face-offs in the game, including six of the last seven to aid the Pioneers to a 6-1 run to close out the contest. Carraro also picked up a game-high six ground balls.
“North Carolina: what a train that was, trying to stop that coming downhill at us early,” Tierney said. “Mostly, I’m proud of these young men and teammates for persevering. You don’t get too many opportunities in life to fight through such adversity and come back ahead. I’m just proud for everybody at the University of Denver and everybody in our organization.”
On the scoresheet, senior attacker Eric Law (Centennial, Colo.) led Denver with six points on his eighth hat trick of the season, to go along with three assists. Sophomore attacker Wesley Berg (Coquitlam, British Columbia) added four goals and an assist, good for his team-leading ninth hat trick of the year. Senior Cameron Flint (Georgetown, Ontario) distributed three assists, and classmate Colin Scott (Ridgefield, Conn.) turned in his fourth multi-goal game of the season with two off the bench for the Pioneers. Freshman Gordie Koerber (Baltimore, Md.), junior Jeremy Noble (Orangeville, Ontario) and sophomore Eric Adamson (Anaheim Hills, Calif.) added a goal apiece to round out the scoring for Denver.
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