Led be a five-point effort from senior Cameron Flint (Georgetown, Ontario), the No. 4/3 nationally-ranked and top-seeded University of Denver men’s lacrosse team defeated the No. 4 seeded Fairfield University Stags 10-8 in the first semifinal of the Eastern College Athletic Conference Tournament on Thursday evening at Boswell Field in Geneva, N.Y. The win advances the Pioneers to the Championship game on Saturday at 2 p.m. MT. Denver will face either Loyola or Ohio State.
“I am so proud of this team because they did not give up at any point in this game today,” said DU head coach Bill Tierney. “Even when Fairfield came back to tie it twice late in the game, these guys really rallied around each other and you could tell that they had the will to win. I also thought our goalie play was really good tonight with Ryan and Jamie in the net.”
Also scoring for the Pioneers was sophomore Wesley Berg (Coquitlam, B.C.) who finished with his 10th career hat trick. Flint’s three goals, was good for his 13th career hat trick. Senior Chase Carraro (Louisville, Ky.) finished the day winning 50 percent of his face-offs (10-of-20) and scoring his third goal of the season, while sophomore Eric Adamson (Anaheim Hills, Calif.) netted his 22nd of the season.
Senior Eric Law (Centennial, Colo.) finished with two points, scoring his 31st goal and tallying his 30th assist. Senior Taylor Young (Littleton, Colo.) rounded out the scoring for the Pioneers with his third goal of the season.
Sophomore goalie Ryan LaPlante (Fort Collins, Colo.) finished the first half with six saves, while allowing four goals, and junior goalie Jamie Faus (Lakeville, Conn.) recorded eight saves while allowing four goals.
Fairfield’s Eric Warden and Jordan Greenfield scored three goals each, while goalie Jack Murphy made 11 saves on the night.
Denver opened the scoring 1:40 into the contest as Young scored off a pass from Law and Berg made it 2-0 with 6:27 left to play. Fairfield tied the game with two goals within 61 seconds of each other and both teams ended the quarter deadlocked at two goals apiece.
Carraro opened the scoring in the second quarter as he scored a “thirty-second timer-on” goal with 6:55 remaining. Flint made it 4-2 a minute and a half later as he scored his first of the game. The Stags answered less than a minute later to make it a one-goal deficit, but the Pioneers stretched it back to two as Berg scored his second of the game with 3:49 to play. Fairfield scored in the final 1:53 of the quarter to make it a 5-4 Denver lead at the half.
Both teams were unable to find the back of the net until Flint scored his second of the game with 4:12 remaining in the third quarter to put DU up 6-4. Fairfield answered with 2:27 remaining and then tied it at 6-6 almost 3:30 into the fourth quarter.
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