Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell University
Navy
Bucknell Men's Lax Drops 9-8 Heartbreaker to Navy in Patriot League Championship Game
4/26/2009 8:00:00 AM | Men's Lacrosse
April 26, 2009
Final Stats |
Quotes |
Photo Gallery 
LEWISBURG, Pa. - Hosting the Patriot League championship game for the first time, in front of a large crowd on a warm, sunny afternoon at Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium, the 15th-ranked Bucknell men's lacrosse team went toe-to-toe with 11th-ranked Navy only to fall 9-8 in gut-wrenching fashion on Sunday afternoon. Austin Winter (Boonton Twp., N.J./Mountain Lakes) had two goals and three assists and Tim Brandau (Owings Mills, Md./McDonogh) scored three goals for the Bison, who made up a two-goal deficit in the fourth quarter only to lose on a couple of strange plays.
Bucknell fell to 9-7 on the season, including three wins over ranked opponents, and will now be up for consideration for an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament. The selections will be announced next Sunday at 9 p.m. on ESPNU.
The Bison advanced to the championship game for the second straight year after beating Army 10-8 in the semifinals on Friday. The finale could not have been tighter, as neither team led by more than one goal until the fourth quarter.
Bucknell led 5-4 after a see-saw first half, but the Bison were outplayed in the third quarter and saw their lead disappear. Navy outshot Bucknell 10-5 in the third and possessed the ball for most of the period. Andy Warner's bounce shot from the left side with 36 seconds left in the period gave the Midshipmen (11-4) a 6-5 lead.
In the opening three minutes of the fourth quarter, Joe Lennon made a slick backdoor pass to Tim Paul for a goal, and Navy opened up the largest lead of the day at 7-5.
Bucknell trailed Army by that exact same score in the semifinals and rallied to win, and the Bison tried valiantly to do the same on Sunday. With 7:39 to play, Brandau came from behind the cage and shoveled in a one-handed shot to make it 7-6. That ended a 24:22 scoreless drought for the Bison, but they needed only 47 more seconds to cash in again.
After a Navy pushing penalty on the faceoff, the Bucknell EMO unit came up with the equalizer when Winter made a great pass from behind the goal to a cutting Mike Danylyshyn (Fairport, N.Y./Fairport), who quick-sticked it home.
Nick Sciubba (Sea Cliff, N.Y./Salisbury School) made a big save at the other end and the Bison seemed to execute a routine clear, but they had seven men across the midfield line and gave up possession on the offside call. Seconds later they were flagged for having too many men on the field, and Navy's Evan Sullivan scored on the ensuing EMO to give the Mids the lead back with 3:00 to play. That was only the second time in the entire tournament that Bucknell had been called for a penalty.
Disaster struck on the faceoff, as pole John Scally (Short Hills, N.J./Delbarton) gobbled up the ground ball with his momentum carrying him back toward the Bucknell goal. While trying to pass back to a defenseman to set up a clear, Scally lost both his balance and the ball, and it leaked all the way back into his own open net.
That gave Navy a 9-7 lead with 2:51 left, but Bucknell got the score right back when Winter fed Joe Mele (Westbury, N.Y./Kellenberg Memorial) with 1:10 to play. Jake Clarke (Cos Cob, Conn./Greenwich) cleanly won the faceoff, and with 24 seconds left Navy goalie Tommy Phalen made a big save on a blast from Charlie Streep (New Canaan, Conn./Loomis-Chaffee).
The Mids tracked down the rebound but turned it over in the Bucknell end with 10 seconds left. The Bison called a timeout and drew up a play for defenseman Tom Izard (West Hartford, Conn./Hotchkiss School) to fire a long shot toward a screened goaltender, with a teammate prepared to back up an errant shot. Izard had his stick checked and his shot sailed well high of the target with five seconds remaining, but the officials ruled it to be a pass rather than a shot and awarded possession to Navy. The Mids then fired the ball the length of the field as time expired.
After Navy scored first on a Brendan Connors goal 2:18 into the game, Bucknell got two quick ones to take its first lead. First, middie Chris Palmer (Atlanta, Ga./The Lovett School) scored with a hard lefthanded shot, then 1:07 later Brandau made it 2-1 after a nice interior feed from Danylyshyn.
Connors scored again on a fastbreak off an assist from pole Zack Schroeder to make it 2-2 after one period. The Bison took the lead three different times in the second quarter. Winter fed Brandau for a 3-2 lead just 1:06 into the period. Later, Winter darted in from the corner on a restart to put the Bison up 4-3, and after Connors put back a rebound to tie it, Ryan Klipstein (Califon, N.J./Rutgers Prep) made a great crossing pass to Winter, who scored on the back side with 2:01 remaining. But that would be Bucknell's last goal until the fourth period.
Connors finished with three goals and Lennon had two assists for Navy. Tournament MVP Tommy Phelan had 10 saves for Navy, as did Sciubba for the Bison.
Navy finished with a 32-27 shot advantage and led 36-25 in ground balls. With Clarke at the X on every draw, Bucknell won the faceoff battle 13-8.
Winter's three assists give him 32 on the season, eighth-most on Bucknell's single-season list.
Bucknell was trying to become the first Patriot League team to defeat Navy twice in the same season. The Bison won 8-7 at home back on Feb. 28. The loss was Bucknell's first in eight games against Patriot League opponents in 2009. They went 6-0 in the regular season before beating Army on Friday in the semifinals.
Bucknell fell to 2-5 all-time in the Patriot League Tournament, with four of those five losses coming by just one goal.
Winter, Brandau and senior defenseman Billy Haire (Darien, Conn./Darien) made the All-Tournament Team for Bucknell. They were joined by Navy's Phelan (MVP), Connors, Lennon, Geoff Leone and Andy Tormey. Jason Peyer and Matt Poulos of Army and Brandon Corp and Michael Crown of Colgate also made the team.
