Men's Lax Takes on Colgate Friday in PL Semifinals on CBS Sports Network

LEWISBURG, Pa. -- The Patriot League Men's Lacrosse Tournament is down to its last four teams, and the third-seeded Bison are still alive after a convincing 13-8 win over Lehigh on Tuesday in the quarterfinal round. Bucknell now heads to Annapolis, Maryland to take on second-seeded Colgate on Friday at 4:30 p.m. on CBS Sports Network.

The Bison (#20 Cascade/Maverik Media Poll; RV USILA Coaches' Poll) are heating up at just the right time, and they bring a three-game winning streak into Annapolis. In particular, the last two games have been two of the best of the season for the Bison.

They capped the regular season with a dramatic win over Loyola, scoring twice in the final 90 seconds of regulation to tie the game before winning it on a Sean Doyle goal in overtime. In Tuesday's quarterfinal round, Bucknell streaked to a 5-0 lead against Lehigh and led by at least four the rest of the way en route to a 13-8 victory.

Now the Bison (9-5) draw 18th-ranked Colgate. The two teams met way back on March 1 at Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium, and the Raiders came away with a 10-8 victory. Colgate had a bye into the semifinals. The Raiders won their final four games of the season to finish 6-2 in the Patriot League (8-4 overall) and tie Navy for the regular-season title.

Bucknell holds a 21-15 lead in the all-time series with Colgate, but the Raiders have won five of the last six.

Tuesday's win over Lehigh was a rare blowout for the Bison. Of Bucknell's 14 games this season, 11 have been decided by one or two goals. The Bison are 6-2 in one-goal games, including overtime wins over Lehigh, Brown and Loyola. This is the first time in program history the team has won three OT games in the same season.

Will Sands and David Dickson are both on scoring tears of late. Dickson has four goals and 14 assists in his last four games, and he has pulled in front of Sands for the team scoring lead with 42 points (14G, 28A). Sands now has 14 goals (on 25 shots) in his last four games and 41 points on 26 goals and 15 assists on the season. He now ranks fifth nationally in shooting percentage at .491. Sands earned his third Patriot League Rookie of the Week honor on Monday. Doyle is also hot, with 11 goals in his last four games. 

Senior co-captain Ryan Joseph also has a team-high 26 goals this season. A Second Team All-Patriot League selection, Joseph scored the overtime goal that beat Lehigh during the regular season, he scored with 1:51 left in the fourth quarter for a 10-9 win over Fairfield, and his fourth-quarter goal at Brown tied the game and forced overtime, where the Bison later won a goal by Thomas Flibotte. 

Bucknell has benefitted from the return of Dickson, a First Team All-Patriot League midfielder who missed the first three games of the season with a wrist injury suffered in a preseason scrimmage against Syracuse. Dickson's 130 career assists are second-most among all active Division I players, behind only Albany's Lyle Thompson, the reigning Tewaaraton Award co-recipient. Dickson was named a Preseason Honorable Mention All-American by Inside Lacrosse, and he was a Third Team All-American in 2013 after dishing out a Patriot League-record 48 assists. Dickson is a member of the 2015 Tewaaraton Award Watch List, and his 28 assists lead the league this season despite his three-game absence.

Junior long-stick middie Alex Spring is having a fantastic year. He leads the team in ground balls (70) and caused turnovers (23) playing both in the set defense and on faceoff wings. His 5.0 ground balls per game is the fourth-best mark in the Patriot League, and the best among non-faceoff specialists. Spring has now topped the 50-ground ball mark in all three of his seasons with the Bison, and last Friday he passed Ryan Goodman for second place on Bucknell's career GB list (he now has 180). The 70 ground balls this season are eighth-most in program history.

Bucknell has tightened up its defense in the last two games against a pair of potent offenses in Loyola and Lehigh. After conceding double-digit goals only twice all season, the Bison had given up 10 or more in each of its previous four games before holding Loyola to nine. The Bison then held Lehigh to eight goals (two in blowout time at the end) and held Patriot League Offensive Player of the Year Dan Taylor to just a goal and two assists. Bucknell had dropped its last 14 games when allowing 10 or more goals until defeating Lafayette 14-13 on Apr. 1. The last time Bucknell won when yielding 10+ goals was in an 18-12 win over Albany in 2013.

Bucknell is playing in the Patriot League Tournament for the ninth year in a row and for the 11th time in 12 years. After suffering championship-game losses in 2008 and 2009, the Bison got over the hump in 2011 and won their first Patriot League Tournament title with convincing victories over Lehigh and Colgate. In 2013 the Bison again advanced to the Patriot League championship game but fell to Lehigh in the final. Bucknell is 6-9 all-time in the Patriot League Tournament, with its nine losses coming by a combined 22 goals.

In the other semifinal game on Friday, top-seeded Navy hosts No. 5 Army at 7:30 p.m. The winners will clash on Sunday at 1 p.m., with the championship game also airing on CBS Sports Network.