BALTIMORE — At halftime of Friday’s Patriot League men’s lacrosse tournament semifinals at Ridley Athletic Complex, top-seeded Loyola was in an uncomfortable fight with sixth-seeded Boston University.
The Terriers, who had been blasted at Loyola two weeks earlier, 23-9, after a competitive first half, had taken a 7-6 advantage on a late, first-half transition goal by long-stick midfielder Chase Levesque.
As they did back on April 14, the Greyhounds responded again, this time by removing the drama a little more gradually against the Terriers.
Junior goalie Jacob Stover made four third-quarter saves to spark an excellent defense that shut down BU., the Loyola transition game cranked up, and freshman attackman Kevin Lindley scored three of his game-high five goals, as Loyola surrendered just one second-half goal and rolled to a 13-8 victory.
The top-seeded Greyhounds (11-3) move on to the Patriot League title game on Sunday (12 p.m. ET), when Loyola will go after its fourth conference championship in its five years in the league by facing fourth-seeded Lehigh.
The Mountain Hawks survived a back-and-forth battle with No. 2 seed Navy, and the two teams needed overtime to decide it. Forty-two seconds into the extra period, junior attackman Lucas Spence scored his game-high fourth goal to send Lehigh (10-6) to its first Patriot League title game since 2014 with a 10-9 win.
That year, Loyola’s first in the Patriot League, Lehigh lost to the Greyhounds in the final, and the Mountain Hawks have yet to solve Loyola, which owns a 13-0 all-time mark against them.
“One thing I can pretty much guarantee is we’re going to give a better effort, whatever our game plan might be,” said Lehigh coach Kevin Cassese, referring to Lehigh’s 16-10 loss to Loyola on April 7 in Bethlehem, Pa. “The key is we’ve got to recharge as best as we can.”
Lehigh took the hard road to get to Sunday. On Tuesday, the Mountain Hawks defeated Colgate 11-6 in the quarterfinal round then came to Baltimore to test a more rested second-seeded Navy team.
It wasn’t a pretty display by either team Friday night, as each squad struggled to string together good offensive possessions and neither team ever led by more than two goals. Navy (9-5) went through scoring droughts of 24 and 14 minutes, but the Midshipmen, who were baffled at times by Lehigh’s matchup zone, wouldn’t go away.
Freshman attackman Christian Daniel took a feed inside from Greyson Torain and scored to pull Navy even at 9-9 with 4:39 left in regulation. In the final seconds of regulation, Navy goalie Ryan Kern went high to save a low-to-high shot by Lehigh attackman Andrew Pettit, but Kern failed to secure the save. The ball hit the ground and nearly spun past the goal line, before caroming harmlessly off the lower right post.
In overtime, the Mountain Hawks won the only faceoff after a freshman faceoff wingman Teddy Leggett scooped a critical ground ball. Cassese called timeout.
Spence then went to work on Navy short-stick midfielder David Jones, who engaged Spence all night down low. Spence, who initiated from behind the Navy net, forced Jones topside, recognized Navy’s switch to a zone look, rolled left, then stuck his shot in the upper left corner, beyond Kern’s reach.
“When I saw they had dropped into that zone, I knew it was easier to attack the shorty,” Spence said.
Lehigh, which also got three goals from Pettit, gave up two early goals to the Mids, who exploited the Mountain Hawks’ man-to-man in the first quarter and took a 3-1 on goals by Jack Ray (three goals), Greyson Torain (one goal, two assists) and Dave Little (two goals, one assist).
Lehigh switched to a zone, began to take Torain out of the game, and clawed back to tie it at 4-4 early in the second quarter on a goal by midfielder John Mehok. There would be three more ties and four lead changes after that.
Navy took its final lead at 8-7 on Ray’s third goal with 3:40 left in the third quarter. Pettit and Spence scored early in the fourth to give Lehigh a 9-8 advantage. The Mids would never lead again.
The Greyhounds took the air out of BU in a pivotal third quarter. Stover made four of his nine saves – including one that thwarted a two-man-up advantage by the Terriers. Stover ignited fast breaks that resulted in scores by long-stick midfielder Ryan McNulty and Lindley.
Junior attackman Pat Spencer, who became the all-time leader in points in Patriot League history in the first half and finished with two goals and three assists, scored his second goal during Loyola’s 4-0, third quarter.
The Greyhounds held BU scoreless for the first 22 minutes of the second half and scored the first six goals of the second half.
“It was a pretty silent locker room [at halftime],” said Loyola coach Charley Toomey, who decided to switch from a zone to a man-to-man at the break. “It was a dogfight out there, not the cleanest game. Our guys, I give them credit, because they asked, ‘What do we need to do?’ We made a decision to go back to man-to-man, and our guys just played hard.”