Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell University
Mount St. Mary's
Bison Men's Lacrosse Opens Season with 11-8 Win Over Mount St. Mary's
2/28/2004 7:00:00 AM | Men's Lacrosse
Feb. 28, 2004
LEWISBURG, Pa. - Bison junior attack Patrick Christensen scored a career-high six goals, and classmate Chris Cara matched his career-high for points with three goals and five assists, as the Bucknell men's lacrosse team opened the season with an 11-8 win over visiting Mount St. Mary's on Saturday, February 28. It marks the fifth-straight year the Orange and Blue have opened the season in February, and the team improves to 24-13 all-time in season-openers.
Bucknell never trailed in the contest as Christensen and Cara connected for the first goal of the game at the 12:21 mark to get the scoring started. Mount St. Mary's responded less than a minute later when Jay Duffy got his team on the board with an unassisted score with 11:31 to go in the first quarter.
Junior Ross Albers broke the deadlock with his first goal of the season, taking a pass from Cara to make it 2-1 BU. Christensen gave the squad a 3-1 lead when he fired home Patrick O'Hearn's pass with 4:31 left in the first. Eric Seifert made it a one-goal game at the end of the first quarter with his goal for the visitors at 2:04.
The Bison scored four of six goals in the second quarter, getting two from Christensen, one from Cara and another from senior Wes Fetchet to carry a 7-4 lead into the intermission.
Christensen and Cara hooked up again just over four minutes into the third quarter to match Bucknell's largest lead of the game at 8-4. Mount St. Mary's converted its second man-up goal of the game on a Jason Werner goal with 8:10 left in the third, and Werner struck again four minutes later, after a Christensen tally at the other end, to make it 9-6 entering the final frame.
Duffy scored his second goal of the game just 48 seconds into the fourth quarter to get the Mount within two, 9-7, but Cara scored the next two goals for the Orange and Blue, the second one being Bucknell's only man-up goal in five tries, to push it back to an 11-7 contest. Matt Warner slipped one past Bison goalkeeper Matt Baran with 5:06 left in the game for the final score of the contest.
Baran, earning the start for the first time in his career, made 13 saves on 36 Mount St. Mary's shots. The Mount's goalkeeper, Dan Whitehurst, stopped 10 of BU's 31 attempts. Junior faceoff specialist Ryan Goodman won 14 of 22 faceoffs for the Bison, while Bucknell held a slight 36-34 lead in ground balls, led by T.J. Wallace's career-high five.
Bucknell (1-0) remains home for a 12 p.m. game against Harvard on Saturday, March 6. Mount St. Mary's falls to 0-1.
