Denver men’s lacrosse closed out their home schedule Sunday with a win to give Denver its first ever undefeated home record.
In front of a record breaking crowd Friday night, DU faced off against the Fighting Irish, and fight the Irish did. DU came out hot scoring three goals in the first quarter and not allowing one by Notre Dame.
But in the second, Denver’s sticks went dry and the Irish answered with three straight to close out the half tied at three. The blue and gold continued their momentum into the second half and got the go ahead score with 12:27 left in the quarter. Then, with 9:46 left, Ryan Zordani scored his 14th goal of the season to tie the game at four.
It appeared that the game would enter the final quarter tied until with 36 seconds left on the clock two Pioneers were penalized 30 second pushing violations which gave Norte Dame a two man advantage over Denver.
With the final seconds of the quarter drawing near, the Irish were denied a go ahead goal by Jeb Hollingsworth who miraculously saved two shots in a row that turned the momentum of the game back towards DU.
Denver scored three consecutive goals in the fourth to take control of the game and Hollingsworth only allowed one more past him with 4:54 to go. Soon after however, senior Adam Goodwin slung one past goalie Joey Kemp to give DU its eighth home victory in a row with a final score of 8-5.
Instrumental in the victory was DU goalie Jeb Hollingsworth, with 15 saves and five goals against. Hollingsworth said after the game, “That’s one of the best teams in our conference and to come out and beat them; everybody played hard and its great to come out on top.” When asked about his two amazing saves to conclude the third quarter, Hollingsworth simply stated, “It’s instinct.”
“It feels great, we are so happy. We expected to win it and it feels great to go out there and do it,” said sophomore Brett Koll who got the Pioneer offense rolling with the first goal of the game. “We had confidence in ourselves and I just felt blessed to be the one to get it started.”
“It felt so good, we went a long time with out beating them and then last year we beat them for the first time, and it was a similar game that was a low scoring, hard fought battle and today was really no different, it feels great,” said Head Coach Jamie Munro. “The difference is last year it felt like the national championships but this year we know that we have to a lot of work to do to win our conference championship. This is a step. We are 2 and 0. We need to be 5 and 0.”
Sunday afternoon the red hot Pioneers took on the Bucknell Bison and defeated them 11-8 to give Denver its flawless home record for the season. While Friday night’s game seemed to go back and forth it was nothing compared to the game Sunday.
Denver got off to an early two point lead with two unassisted goals the first by senior Geoff Snider and the second by freshman Joe Murray. The Bison tied it up within three minutes and then Denver got the lead again before the first quarter ended.
Bucknell got the next two to go one up DU evened it out with a goal by Jon Paulson only to see the Bison take the lead again within one minute of Paulson’s goal. Rory Shepard tied it at five until the Bison went two up with 4:24 left in the first half. With under a minute to go in the quarter Brad Richardson got his tenth goal of the season to cut the Bison lead to one going into the half.
The second half was all Denver with Brett Koll getting three goals in the second half, his first hat trick of the season. Freshman goalie Austin Konkel saw 34 minutes of action and had 13 saves and only one goal against to help the Pioneers close out the game with a final score of 11-8. Geoff Snider whom struggled Friday night on the face-off won 17 of 23 on Sunday and grabbed 15 groundballs to his 3 on Friday. Also impressive in both games was Ryan Zordani with two goals and one assist Friday and three assists Sunday to close out the home season.
Looking ahead to the stretch of road games the will close out the regular season for the Pioneers, Coach Munro seemed optimistic saying, “We haven’t been successful results wise on the road so far this year but we’ve played pretty well. We lost a game in which we out shot our opponent 55 to 26 and we hit seven pipes in that game, so it wasn’t like we didn’t play well. I think that this team is hungry to prove that they can play on the road.”
The Pioneers won nine straight at home this season to give them a 9-4(2-0) record going into their final road trip of the year. They next face Great Western Lacrosse League opponent Ohio State on April 21 and then another GWLL opponent Butler on the 23rd. The Pioneers are in the running to take first place in the GWLL.
