Joe Clark vs. Messiah 3/5/16
Wyatt Eaton
5
Messiah MESS 1-3
7
Winner Elizabethtown ETOWN 4-1
Messiah MESS
1-3
5
Final
7
Elizabethtown ETOWN
4-1
Winner
Score By Periods
Team 1 2 3 4 F
Messiah MESS 1 2 1 1 5
Elizabethtown ETOWN 1 2 0 4 7

Game Recap: Men's Lacrosse |

Blue Jays take over fourth quarter to beat Messiah

ELIZABETHTOWN, Pa. – Joe Clark and Phil Kyger hooked up for three of Elizabethtown's four fourth-quarter goals and the Blue Jays snapped a three-game skid against archrival Messiah with a 7-5 victory Saturday afternoon at Wolf Field.

Between a tight defensive game and some great goalkeeping, both teams found themselves offensively strapped for much of the afternoon. The first 45 minutes produced just seven goals, Messiah taking a 4-3 lead to the final quarter.

Clark bounced a shot high into the left corner 90 second into the fourth to tie the game at four. Just 1:27 later, nine seconds into a man-up situation, the junior from Hershey took a Kyger pass and fired it to almost the exact same spot from a sharp angle for a 5-4 Blue Jays' lead.

Messiah (1-3) found the equalizer less than two minutes later when Ryan Van Bochoven scored his second of the game to make it 5-5. Van Bochoven, the Falcons' fifth leading scorer from a year ago, came into Saturday's game without a point in two previous games this season.

A timeout with 4:51 to play allowed coach Drew Delaney to draw up a plan for his offense. On the ensuing possession, Dan Bednarik dumped a pass into Nick Specht, who turned and released a shot that beat Falcon goalie Sam Stengel. Specht just got the shot off in time as multiple Messiah defenders converged on him, and the Blue Jays had a 6-5 lead with 4:30 remaining.

The Falcons got two great looks in an attempt to tie the game, but Davis Miracle denied Blake Knobloch with 2:52 to go and turned away an Isaac Zorn try with 1:47 left.

Stengel came out of his net to try and provide extra defensive pressure in the last few minutes, but Clark was able to evade all comers and find Kyger for insurance into a gaping net with 39.5 to go.

Messiah looked as if it would take its first lead of the game early in the third quarter when Knobloch scored a man-up goal at 12:22. The Jays requested a stick check and the stick was found to be illegal, wiping the goal off the board and prompting a 3-minute penalty for the Falcons. The visitors would kill off the disadvantage, however, and eventually take a 4-3 lead when Van Bochoven spun off a defender and scored at 6:11 of the period.

Joe Clark and Matthew Franken traded goals in the first quarter, with Mike Specht and Jimmy Waters scoring in the second for the Blue and Gray.

Elizabethtown (4-1) had the better of the opportunites on offense, outshooting the Falcons in every quarter but the fourth. The Blue Jays took 27 shots to Messiah's 19 and collected 13 more ground balls, 37-24.

Freshman Jon Knapp was responsible for four caused turnovers. Senior captain Jake Snyder added three and Mike Tangredi two, along with a team-high four ground balls.

Offensively, Clark led the way with four points (3 goals, 1 assist). The hat trick was his second of the season and he's now scored a point in 27 straight games dating back to April 9, 2014. Clark moved into fifth-place on the Blue Jays' career scoring list (123 points) ahead of Cory Boushell. Kyger had a goal and two assists. Jason Clough provided an assist on Clark's first-quarter goal.

Messiah won 75% of the face-offs, as Brady Marburger went 12-of-16. Stengel made things difficult for the Jays by stopping 15 shots, including five in the first and third quarters.

Miracle finished with nine saves for the Blue Jays.

Elizabethtown now gets a week to prepare for nationally-ranked Ursinus, which visits Wolf Field next Saturday at 1 p.m.
 
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