May 18, 2008

from staff reports

Cortland 16, Ithaca 5 (BOX SCORE)
Senior Billy Fuchs and junior Joey Morgan each scored four goals to lead the nationally second-ranked Cortland men's lacrosse team to a dominant 16-5 win versus seventh-ranked Ithaca in the NCAA Division III Semifinals Sunday afternoon at the SUNY Cortland Stadium Complex.

The Red Dragons won their 14th consecutive game and improved to 18-1 on the season and advance to the Division III title game against Salisbury, Sunday, May 25, at 1:30 p.m. at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Mass. This will be the third straight year the Red Dragons and Gulls meet for the national crown. The Bombers ended their season at 17-3.

Fuchs, who set the single-season goal record at 58 with his four tallies, also added an assist to his scoring line, while senior Adam Hyde became the 18th player in school history to reach 100 career goals, as he recorded two goals and an assist.

Senior Josh Cittadino netted a pair of goals, and senior Ryan Heath added two assists to break the school single-season scoring record. Heath now has 97 points (51 goals, 46 assists) this season in 19 games, surpassing the old record of 95 (36 goals, 59 assists) set by Mark Koetzner in 1981.

Senior Kyle Simensky contributed one goal and one assist, and freshman Chris DeLuca won 7-of-10 faceoffs. Junior goalie Mike Robinson made nine saves and allowed four goals in 54 minutes of action before giving way to junior Matt Hipenbecker, who stopped two shots and gave up one goal in the final six minutes.

Senior Matt Nelligan led the Bombers with two goals and one assist. Seniors Logan Bobzien and Craig Lepiane and junior Matt Cutter each scored a goal. Junior goalie Ben Connery started in the cage and made 10 saves and allowed seven goals in the first half.

Freshman David Gale played 20 minutes, 47 seconds, stopping three shots and surrendering eight goals, and junior Collin Meadow played the final 9:13 with two saves and one goal against.

Morgan opened the scoring at 13:41 of the first quarter with an unassisted goal, but Ithaca responded with goals from Nelligan and Lepiane to take a 2-1 lead, the Bombers' only advantage in the game. Cittadino, Simensky and Hyde closed out the quarter with goals and Cortland led 4-2.

Fuchs netted back-to-back goals and Morgan scored his second of the game to push Cortland's lead to 7-2 late in the second quarter before Bobzien stopped the run with his 36th goal of the season at the 52-second mark to make it a 7-3 game at intermission.

Cortland put the game away in the third quarter, outscoring Ithaca, 4-1, to gain an 11-4 advantage. Krol and Nelligan traded man-up goals, then Heath scored his school-record 96th point of the season on an assist of Fuchs' goal and Morgan scored his third of the game. Robinson followed with an assist with a long outlet to Cittadino, who ran in alone on Gal and scored his second of the game.

The Red Dragons opened up the fourth quarter with five straight goals, the third in the run being Hyde's 100th of his career and the fourth coming off Fuchs' stick to break the record of 57 goals in a season set by Rich Felser in 1967. The Bombers finished the scoring at the 2:16 mark on a man-up goal by Cutter, assisted by Nelligan.

Cortland outshot Ithaca, 51-25, and held a 43-30 advantage in ground balls. The teams split 24 faceoffs. The Red Dragons were successful on 2-of-4 man-up situations, while the Bombers were 2-of-6.

Salisbury 11, Gettysburg 10 (2OT) (BOX SCORE)
Junior Kylor Berkman took a pass from senior Bruce Richardson and scored the game-winner for top-ranked Salisbury University with 2:48 left in double overtime to defeat No. 3 Gettysburg College, 11-10, before 1,411 at Sea Gull Stadium. The victory sends the Sea Gulls to their 11th NCAA Division III men's lacrosse national championship game.

"I didn't think about it. I just shot it as hard as I could," said Kylor Berkman (two goals, one assist) of the game-winning goal.

Salisbury (21-0) will meet second-ranked SUNY Cortland (18-1) for a third consecutive year in the national title game. The two teams will square off on Sunday, May 25, at 1:30 p.m. in Foxborough, Mass., in Gillette Stadium.

SU defeated Cortland 15-9 in the championship last year in Baltimore. The Red Dragons took down Salisbury 13-12 in overtime the year before in Philadelphia.

Cortland stomped seventh-ranked Ithaca College 16-5 in the other national semifinal on Sunday afternoon.

The Sea Gulls have won 44 consecutive games since the start of the 2007 season and will take a 74-0 home winning streak into the 2009 season.

Salisbury trailed the Bullets, for the majority of the game, and faced a 9-7 deficit at the start of the fourth quarter. Richardson (two goals, two assists) and sophomores Jake DeLillo (two goals) and Mike Von Kamecke scored three straight goals to give SU its first lead since 10:06 left in the second quarter.

The Gulls held the 10-9 lead until 2:19 remained in regulation when Gettysburg season leading scorer Joe Brody (2g, 1a) scored an unassisted goal past SU goalie Nick Fiorentino (eight saves) to knot the score at 10 a piece and force overtime.

Gettysburg won the face-off in the first overtime period and got off two shots to Salisbury's one shot in the four-minute extra period but the score remained tied at 10. The second overtime period started with SU winning the face-off behind Ryan Finch (13-for-15 on face-offs, 10 ground balls) winning his 13th face-off of the game.

After a Salisbury timeout the Sea Gulls set-up the game-winning play as Richardson found a wide-open Berkman on the right-side of the Gettysburg goal.

"I am awfully proud as a coach and a dad that the last shot went in," said SU coach Jim Berkman. "That is the biggest shot of his career."

The other story of the game was the play of Fiorentino in between the pipes for the Sea Gulls. The fifth-year senior earned his second victory and start of the season in the net for SU. His eight saves is a season-high.

"Yeah, I was nervous to begin with but once I got that first save and the game got going things went real well," said Fiorentino. "I got into the game and got into a rhythm."

His last start was over a month ago against Hood College in the first round of the Capital Athletic Conference tournament.

"I think Nick's performance today was a tribute to all of the guys that had been on the sidelines over the past 20 years that probably didn't play as much as they wanted to, but they worked hard every day in practice," said Jim Berkman. "It is a reflection of all of the guys that have been behind the scenes that have been integral parts of Sea Gull lacrosse."

The SU defense dominated in front of Fiorentino and made the Bullets work for every shot. The Sea Gull defense held the Bullets scoreless for the first 10 minutes of the third quarter and first 13 minutes in the fourth. Senior defender Ryan Phillips caused four Gettysburg turnovers and scooped up six ground balls.

Sophomore long-stick midfielder Connor Burgasser caused three turnovers and scored his first two points of the season with an unassisted goal in the second quarter to give SU a 3-2 lead and an assist to senior Kevin Kustron at the start of the third quarter.

The Sea Gulls caused 15 turnovers as a team and scooped up 35 ground balls compared to the 28 scooped by Gettysburg. The maroon and gold outshot the Bullets 49-33 for the game and dominated the faceoff circle as SU won 17-of-26 face-offs. The two teams were nearly perfect on clears as Gettysburg was 26-for-26 and SU was 24-for-25.

The Bullets were led offensively by Eastern Shore native Trip Dyer's three goals followed by two goals apiece from Ben Sufrin, Brody and Tom O'Donnell (two assists). Gettysburg goalie Zach Furshman made a game-high 14 saves in the loss.

This is the fourth time these two teams have met in the national semifinal round and the second year in a row. Salisbury is now 4-0 all-time against Gettysburg in the semifinals as the previous three wins led to national titles in 1994, '95 and 2007. Last season, Salisbury edged Gettysburg 9-6 at Sea Gull Stadium. During the regular-season the Sea Gulls battled back from a 7-2 halftime deficit on the road to win 11-8 against the Bullets.

"I think I am 10 times more tired then I was last time [against Gettysburg]. We were in it the whole game, we were never as far behind," said Kylor Berkman. "Lacrosse is a game of runs. We were never worried when we were down."

Today's overtime victory was the first since the 2006 national championship game against SUNY Cortland. The game before in the 2006 national semifinals Salisbury needed overtime to defeat Roanoke College, 13-12.

The Sea Gulls are also 7-0 in the NCAA tournament since 2007 and 22-1 in the postseason since 2003.

"I can't tell you how impressed I am with my teammates. It was a gutsy performance," said Fiorentino.