Bucknell University Athletics
Bucknell University
Fairfield
Bucknell Men?s Lax Pulls Away from Fairfield 13-8, Now 3-0 on Season
2/20/2016 3:04:00 PM | Men's Lacrosse
FAIRFIELD, Conn. – The Bucknell men's lacrosse team completely dominated Fairfield on the stat sheet on Saturday afternoon at Rafferty Stadium, but it took a late-third-period scoring flurry to finally shake the Stags as the Bison prevailed 13-8 to move to 3-0 for the first time since 2007.
Sean Doyle scored three goals and two assists for Bucknell, which outshot Fairfield by a whopping 60-19 margin. Much of that possession disparity stemmed from another big day at the faceoff spot, where freshman Jarett Witzal (16-22) and sophomore Sam Hahn (3-3) combined to win 19 of the 25 draws. Witzal also had seven ground balls, while wings Matt Gilray (7) and Alex Spring (5) combined for 12 more ground balls.
Gilray also scored the biggest goal of the day for the Bison, who were locked up in a 6-6 tie after Joe Rodrigues hit for the Stags with 6:25 left in the third quarter. Neither team had led by more than one goal to that point, but Gilray scooped up the ground ball off the draw, raced in and scored nine seconds after the Rodrigues strike to give the Bison the lead for good.
Just 1:14 later, Tommy O'Connor provided some breathing room as he made it 8-6. Quinn Collison scored his first goal of the season on an extra-man chance, and then Thomas Flibotte put the Bison up 10-6 with a goal with 59 seconds remaining in the quarter. Will Sands capped off the five-goal flurry with a tally at the 12:03 mark of the fourth period.
After TJ Neubauer stopped the bleeding momentarily for Fairfield, Kyle Shanahan and Reed Malas scored back-to-back goals to give the Bison a commanding 13-7 lead. It was the first career tally for the freshman Malas.
Until that big game-changing run, Fairfield goalie Tyler Behring was keeping the Stags in the game. Behring finished with 23 saves on the day. He had eight in the first half, and the Bison also hit the pipe three times, as Fairfield led 4-3 at intermission despite a 22-13 Bucknell shot advantage.
Bucknell then fired off 25 shots and scored seven times in the third quarter. The Bison outshot Fairfield 38-6 in the second half. The 60 total shots were the most for Bucknell since it launched 66 attempts in a 19-10 win over Mount St. Mary's on Apr. 14, 1999.
As it has done in each of the first three games of the season, Bucknell spread out the scoring production. Nine different Bison found the back of the net in this one. In addition to Doyle's hat trick, which gives him 83 career goals, O'Connor and Gilray added two apiece. Sands had a goal and two assists, while Connor O'Hara had one goal and one assist.
Flibotte (13), O'Connor (12) and Sands (10) all hit double digits in shots, while Doyle had nine.
Even though Bucknell had all of that possession time, the Bison turned the ball over only 10 times, compared to 14 for the Stags. Bucknell finished with a 36-17 edge in ground balls and went 9-for-11 on clears.
Fairfield (0-2), which is coached by former Bison midfielder Andy Copelan '03, received three goals and an assist from Neubauer and a goal and two assists from Colin Burke.
Freshman goalie Christian Klipstein logged six saves on the afternoon. His classmate Witzal is now 41-for-58 (.707) at the faceoff X on the season.
After opening the year with wins over Delaware, Bryant and Fairfield, the Bison will now start Patriot League play next Saturday at Colgate at noon.
