Late Rally Not Quite Enough as Men's Lax Falls to No. 11/10 Ohio State

Saturday, February 23

Columbus, Ohio

12 p.m.

Bucknell University

1-3

#11/10 Ohio State

4-0

Team	1	2	3	4	Final F
Bucknell	1	3	2	7	13
Ohio State	3	6	5	2	16

Photo by: Phil Puccio

Late Rally Not Quite Enough as Men's Lax Falls to No. 11/10 Ohio State

2/23/2019 2:18:00 PM | Men's Lacrosse

Box Score

Yorke nets five goals, Sopko three for Bison

COLUMBUS, Ohio – The Bucknell men's lacrosse team made a spirited fourth-quarter rally to cut a nine-goal deficit down to two, but the Bison ran out of time and fell 16-13 to No. 11/10 Ohio State on Saturday afternoon at Ohio Stadium. Will Yorke recorded his second five-goal game in the last three contests to lead Bucknell, while Jack Myers logged seven goals to help the Buckeyes improve to 4-0 on the season.

Yorke added an assist to give him a career-high six points on the day, and Tommy Sopko scored all three of his goals in an 8-1 run that trimmed a 14-5 deficit all the way down to 15-13 in the final two minutes. The Bison fell to 1-3 on the season, with two of the losses coming to highly ranked opponents in Ohio State and No. 3 Maryland.

Yorke's first goal of the day, coming on a fling through traffic from the top of the box just before the shot clock expired, tied the game at 1-1 early in the contest. But Myers and the Buckeyes had their way over the next hour. Myers, a freshman who had two goals coming in, scored three in a row to launch Ohio State's run of six straight goals. Back-to-back strikes from Yorke and Matthew Barkauskas later made it an 8-4 game, but Tre Leclaire scored with 1:31 to go in the half to give the Buckeyes a 9-4 lead at intermission.

The spread ballooned to nine after Myers scored four straight goals in a span of just 3:21 late in the third quarter, but Sopko's extra-man goal off a Tom Smith feed with 43 seconds left in the period got the Bison going.

By the time Sopko fed Barkauskas for a goal with 5:18 remaining, Bucknell's deficit was just four at 14-10. The Buckeyes ended the 5-0 Bison run with a Leclaire tally off a Myers assist with 3:43 to go, but Alston Tarry responded with two goals in a 34-second span, and then Smith scored in transition off a Matt Fedorjaka feed to make it a 15-13 game with 1:20 still to go.

Reigning Big Ten Freshman of the Year Justin Inacio, who went 20-for-27 at the faceoff X for Ohio State, won a big one, and the Buckeyes called timeout in the Bucknell end with 41 seconds to go. Bucknell triple-teamed Jack Jasinski in the left corner on the restart, but he wiggled out of it and scored into an empty net to make it 16-13. Ohio State added one more faceoff win to close out the game.

Yorke's five-goal performance came just two weeks after he posted five in a win over Bryant at Christy Mathewson-Memorial Stadium. The junior now has a team-high 11 goals on the season after coming into the year with three in his career. Sopko recorded his second straight hat trick, and he equaled his career highs for goals (3) and points (4) in a game.

Tarry and Barkauskas -- both freshman starters -- scored two goals apiece, and Smith had a four-point day with a goal and a career-high three assists.

Witzal won 10 faceoffs for the Bison, including the 500th of his career, and he finished with a team-high seven ground balls. Defensive middie Hunter Newman paced the defensive unit with four ground balls, while freshman defenseman Drew Wellington had three ground balls and two caused turnovers in his first start.

Ohio State finished with a 35-33 shot advantage and a 41-35 edge in ground balls. Josh Kirson made 11 saves for the Buckeyes, while Christian Klipstein had nine for the Bison.

Bucknell is back on the road next Saturday when it opens up Patriot League play at Navy at 3 p.m. The contest can be seen on the Patriot League Network at PatriotLeague.tv.