Photo by: DU Clarion
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The DU men’s lacrosse team couldn’t finish off what would have been one of the most epic comebacks in lacrosse history, falling 14-13 in an overtime thriller to No. 3-ranked Loyola in the semifinals of the Eastern College Athletic Conference championship tournament this afternoon at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium.
The Greyhounds survived a seven-goal comeback by the Pioneers in the forth quarter, when junior Scott Ratliff, a long-stick midfielder, scored past freshman goalie Ryan LaPlante eight seconds into overtime following the opening face-off.
“We had an another unlucky bounce on the face-off and [Ratliff] was able to scoop it up,” said LaPlante after the loss, describing the last play of the game. “He ran right in on us and we didn’t close in on him in time and by the time we did, he had let the shot go.”
The No.11/12-ranked Pioneers (8-6, 3-3) were stifled early and often by a Greyhounds (13-1, 6-0) defense that caused 12 turnovers and shutdown the high-octane DU offense for the first three quarters of the contest, allowing six goals on 24 shots.
“I told my team, I was very disappointed in them for the first three quarters, but I am very proud of them for that last 12 minutes,” said head coach Bill Tierney after the game. “It was as impressive 12 minutes of lacrosse as I’ve ever seen. Most teams could have, and would have, quit. If we get another chance, we will be a tough team to handle come playoff time.”
In the fourth quarter, Denver completed a comeback for the ages as they scored seven goals in the final 12 minutes of the quarters. Junior Eric Law and sophomore Jeremy Noble each finished with a hat trick on the day, while scoring two goals a piece during the 7-0 stretch late in the game.
Senior attackman Alex Demopolous also added two goals as the Pioneers continued to close the gap in the fourth, but the comeback effort would eventually be spoiled in overtime, marking the forth time this season the team has lost in overtime and the fifth time they’ve lost by a single goal.
“It was fun to be apart of that run; it’s always better when your clicking like that on offense,” said Demopolus. “It’s extremely tough to lose again [in overtime], especially it being the fourth time. It’s another dagger to the heart for us, but I know our guys will stay strong through this, because it’s not the first time for us
We know we could have had a higher seed in the NCAA and hopefully we’ll just get another chance to play again.”
Loyola jumped out to its biggest lead of the game when junior midfielder Phil Dobson scored past LaPlante with 13:14 left in the fourth to put the Greyhounds up 13-6. It was the biggest deficit the Pioneers faced all season.
“I was just disappointed early on because we didn’t have the fire we had against Duke to start the game,” said Tierney. “They just out hustled us on a few ground balls.”
Denver made a few comebacks throughout the contest, including the epic run in the fourth, but trailed for the entire game as the Greyhounds jumped out to an early 4-0 lead in the first quarter and didn’t let up.
Loyola extended the lead to as many as five goals in the second quarter, but a late Pioneers run brought the contest to 8-5 at halftime. In the first half, eight different Loyola players recorded a goal, as the Pioneers couldn’t handle the barrage of Greyhound scorers, which included seniors Eric Lusby and Pat Byrnes and juniors Dobson, Chris Layne and Davis Butts
LaPlante finished with 12 saves, following his best performance of the season last Friday in Denver’s 15-9 win over Duke at the Mile High Classic.
Despite several nice individual plays, LaPlante couldn’t figure out the Greyhound offense, which scored four goals in each of the first three quarters.
On the opposite end of the field, sophomore goalie Jack Runkel shut down Denver for the first three quarters of the game behind stellar defensive play from senior Dylan Grimm and junior Reid Acton, who finished with a total of five caused turnovers between them.
Grimm and Acton limited the Pioneers scoring duo of seniors Demopolous and Mark Matthews, who shot a combined four of nine on the night.
“I thought we were capable of doing that the whole game, but for whatever reason we couldn’t get in that type of groove and it came too late,” said Demopolus after the game. “Loyola’s defense did play very well and a lot of credit goes to them.”
The Pioneers came out of halftime firing as junior Chase Carraro won the opening face-off and darted down the field to beat Runkel three seconds into the half.
After that though, the Pioneers couldn’t find much on offense as the Greyhounds took control once again, using four unanswered goals to take a commanding 12-6 lead into the fourth quarter.
In the final frame, DU would go on to convert seven of their 13 shots into goals as junior Chase Carraro went seven of nine in the face-off circle. With Carraro dominating on the face-offs, the Pioneers outshot the Greyhounds 13-2, but failed to get a single shot attempt in the final three minutes of the contest.
“I didn’t realize that [Denver never got the ball for the last three minutes]; it felt like they had the ball for 15 minutes,” said Loyola head coach Charley Toomey. “We were going back and forth about whether or not we wanted to get to a man or play zone. We felt like for some reason, we just got tired and stopped sliding. We were getting the first slide, but they were finding the backside and we weren’t getting that second side. So we were just throwing everything possible to try to get a stop and get the ball on the other end.”
The difference once again was Loyola’s ability to score and to defend in transition, which proved to be the difference when the team’s met back on April 14, when the Pioneers committed 16 turnovers in a loss to Loyola at home. The Greyhounds took advantage of those errors, converting them into three key goals in transition that to be the difference as they went on to win 12-9.
“I thought we were tremendous off the ground and our transition game was spot on, starting with Scott Ratliff,” said Toomey. “We did what it took; we weren’t going to be denied today, not today.”
With the win today, the Greyhounds advance to the ECAC tournament championship game where they will face either Fairfield at 4 p.m. on Friday at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium. The winner takes the conference’s automatic berth in the NCAA tournament.
As for Denver, Tierney said his team would have to wait until Sunday’s selection show to hear their fate in the NCAA tournament, but he remains optimistic the team will get a bid.
“I do believe we will have a spot in the tournament,” said Tierney. “If you look at our losses, we’ve only lost to one un-ranked team, and that was Ohio State at the beginning of the season. The rest have been against top 20, top 10 opponents and we have beaten the No. 3 team, so all that helps. I know the committee looks at big wins and strength of schedule, and we have both of those. Four overtime losses makes you wish you had won one of those, because that would make us feel a lot better. It’s in the hands of other people instead of it being in our hands, which it would have been if we won tonight.”
