Men's Lax Travels to Lehigh Saturday for Key Conference Clash

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LEWISBURG, Pa. -- The Bucknell men's lacrosse team will look to bounce back from last week's tough loss to 20th-ranked Colgate when it travels to Lehigh for a 1 p.m. contest on Saturday afternoon. Both teams come in with identical records: 2-2 overall and 1-1 in the Patriot League.

The Bison will be looking to snap a four-game series losing streak to Lehigh, although Bucknell leads the all-time series 33-14. One of those recent clashes was the Mountain Hawks' victory over Bucknell in the 2013 Patriot League championship game. Last season at Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium, Lehigh prevailed 9-3.

Freshman attackman Will Sands is coming off a career-best four-goal game against Colgate, giving him six goals and a team-best five assists for 11 points on the season. Ryan Joseph, who had four goals in an 8-7 win over Navy the previous week, continues to lead the team in scoring with 12 points on nine goals and three assists.

Thomas Flibotte (4-4-8) and Sean Doyle (7-1-8) have also been top point-producers, and Doyle now has a 33-game point-scoring streak, tied for eighth-longest in the nation. The Bison offensive received a big boost last week with the return of senior midfielder David Dickson from an injury suffered in the preseason. Dickson, a preseason All-America pick by Inside Lacrosse, had two goals and an assist against Colgate in his season debut last week.

Long-stick defensive midfielder Alex Spring continued his outstanding start to the season last week with four caused turnovers and four ground balls against Colgate. He leads the Bison in both categories with 19 ground balls and eight caused turnovers on the season.

Goalie Sam Grinberg has a .556 save percentage and an 8.22 goals-against average on the season.

Bucknell currently leads the nation in fewest turnovers per game (10.5), while Lehigh ranks ninth in the country in caused turnovers. Both teams are looking for improvement in the faceoff area. Lehigh has won 41.3 percent at the X this season, while the Bison have claimed 39.0 percent.

Lehigh began the year with a 10-9 loss to Marquette before posting back-to-back wins over Furman (14-11) and Boston University (10-9). Last week the Mountain Hawks dropped an 11-8 decision at Loyola.

Dan Taylor has provided the bulk of the scoring for the Mountain Hawks, He already has 24 points from 11 goals and 13 assists, and he ranks second nationally in assists and third in points. Taylor had a 10-point game with five goals and five assists in the Furman win. Reid Weber has nine goals for Lehigh, which averages 10.3 per game.

All four of Bucknell's games have been decided by either one or two goals thus far, and after visiting rival Lehigh on Saturday the Bison get a brief respite from Patriot League play. They host Fairfield on Tuesday at 3 p.m. before Holy Cross comes to Lewisburg on March 14 at 1 p.m.