The men’s lacrosse team snapped their six-game losing streak in decisive fashion, thwarting the Lehigh Mountain Hawks, 12-4, at Andy Kerr Stadium on Saturday night. The win gave the Raiders their first Patriot League win of the season, moving their league record to 1-3.

“Our backs were kind of against the wall going into the game,” senior midfielder Ian Murphy said. “The guys on the sideline were really into the game, staying positive and bringing a lot of energy to the guys on the field. Those guys deserve a lot of credit because they work so hard throughout the week, and to bring that much energy to the game on Saturday night was

tremendous for us.”

After a fairly even first half, the Raiders were able to open up the game in the second half, scoring eight goals, only allowing one. The Colgate attack was led by Murphy, who had a career-high five points on three goals and two assists. First-year midfielder Peter Baum recorded his fifth hat-trick of the season, and junior attackman Ben McCabe also chipped in with three points.

The Raiders got on the board just 15 seconds into the game, courtesy of sophomore midfielder John Donnally. Baum then scored his first goal of the contest just two minutes later to give the Raiders a two-goal advantage. The teams then traded goals before Lehigh scored the final two goals of the period,

making the score 3-3 after the first quarter.

The second quarter saw only one goal, and it came from the stick of Murphy less than a minute in, giving the Raiders a 4-3 lead that held until the halftime whistle.

The Raiders dominated the Mountain Hawks throughout the half. They held a huge advantage in shots, 23-9, and in

groundballs, 18-8.

The second half was more of the same for the Raiders as they continued to pepper the Lehigh goal with shots and out-hustle them for ground balls. This hard work finally paid off, as Colgate started racking up the goals. The Raiders were able to beat Lehigh sophomore goalie Conor Murphy three times in the period, and did not surrender any goals on the defensive side. The goals came from junior attackman Andrew Mould, McCabe and Murphy, the latter two scoring on the man-advantage. The Raiders held an 11-2 shot advantage, as well as a 13-6 advantage in ground balls for

the period.

Lehigh was able to tally their first goal of the half early on in the fourth quarter, but the Raiders then buckled down and finished off the game with five unanswered goals, including a man-down goal from senior defenseman Michael Crown.

“We have had a lot of one-goal losses, three of which were to Patriot League teams and two of those were in overtime,” Murphy said. “We feel as though we can play with anyone in the conference. It certainly does feel good to get a win under our belt and start playing to our team’s full potential.”

Sophomore goalie Jared Madison had his best game of the season, stopping 11 of the Mountain Hawks’ 15 shots for a 73.3% save percentage. In total, Colgate took twice as many shots as Lehigh, out-shooting them 42-21, as well as doubling them up in

groundballs 40-20.

The Raiders return to action this Friday against the Lafayette Leopards. Lafayette brings in a high-powered offense, scoring an average of 13.6 goals a game, fourth-highest in the NCAA. Colgate controls its own post-season destiny–if they win out in league games, they are in.

“It feels great knowing that we are still in control of our season,” Murphy said. “We need to focus on limiting Lafayette’s possessions. The defense played great against Lehigh and allowed the offense to put up their highest goal total of the season, so we’ll look to

continue that.”

The game is slated to start at 7 p.m. at Andy Kerr Stadium, and can also be seen on Time Warner Sports.

Contact Steve Urban at [email protected].