The then-No. 3/3 Denver men’s lacrosse team swept the home weekend series, routing Marquette 15-4 Friday and topping Bellarmine 11-10 in a double overtime thriller Sunday. The pair of wins bring the Pioneers to 9-2 on the season and 4-0 in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference (ECAC).

After the defeat, Marquette falls to 2-6 on the season and Bellarmine drops to 7-3 overall and 3-3 in the ECAC.
The Pioneers have three games remaining in the regular season against Loyola, Fairfield and Michigan, all of which are conference games.

Denver is also ranked No. 2 in the ECAC, following only defending conference champions Loyola. Despite the weekend sweep, the Pioneers drop to No. 3/4 nationally.

On Friday, Denver saw goals from nine different Pioneers, including senior attackman Eric Law with four goals, sophomore midfielder Wes Berg, junior attackman Harrison Archer and senior midfielder Cameron Flint with two goals each and sophomore midfielder Tyler Ekeroth, sophomore midfielder Eric Adamson, senior midfielder Chase Carraro, junior attackman Bailey Dodds and freshman midfielder Hunter Gore each added one goal.

Law picked up his 10th career hat trick and his fourth game with four or more goals, while Berg brought his goal tally to 31 on the season.

Four Pioneer goalkeepers saw action Friday, combining for 10 saves in the contest. Sophomore Ryan LaPlante started the game, making four saves and tallying his sixth win of the season. Junior Jamie Faus made five saves in 21 minutes of action, junior Erik Carter made one save in five minutes of action and freshman Joey Gigantiello got his first four minutes of collegiate action under his belt.

“Most importantly, we got everybody involved in the game, and we got some contributions from guys who haven’t had a lot of playing time this season,” said head coach Bill Tierney. “I really feel like it was a good team win tonight. Eric performed really well. He was on the end of some great plays from his teammates, but he had a great game. He’s a steady presence for us, he’s a great player and he’s our leader.”

On the other side of the field, redshirt junior attackman Tyler Melnyk led the Golden Eagles with two goals, while redshirt junior defenseman Jerry Nobile and freshman attackman Phil McFarland added one each.
Law opened the scoring just 1:16 into the contest on a pass from senior attackman Colin Scott before the Golden Eagles leveled the score less than six minutes later. Before concluding the opening stanza, the Pioneers added back-to-back goals to take a 3-1 lead.

With 4:30 remaining in the first half, Law scored back-to-back goals, extending the Pioneer lead to four goals at 5-1 and senior attackman Tyler Simmons recorded his first career assist in the effort. Marquette cut the lead to three with a goal from McFarland, but law answered with his fourth and final goal of the game to put the Pioneers up 6-2 as they headed into the locker room.

Denver came out of the locker room to score three straight goals and bring the lead to six at 9-2 after just over three minutes of play in the second half. Melnyk found the net for Marquette six minutes into the third quarter, but Flint answered just one minute later.

Carraro and Dodds each added a goal apiece to close the period and Denver entered the closing frame of the game with a 12-3 advantage.

Less than a minute into the final stanza, Archer stretched the Pioneer lead to 10 before Melnyk scored Marquette’s final goal of the contest and brought the team back within single digits of the Pioneers.

Gore scored his first career goal with three minutes remaining and Ekeroth followed shortly to make the score its final 15-4.

Forty-nine Pioneers saw playing time in Friday’s win.

Sunday’s thriller

The Pioneers continued the weekend winning trend on Sunday when they topped conference opponent Bellarmine 11-10 in double overtime at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium in front of 2,027 fans.

Five Pioneers found the net in Sunday’s game including Flint, who matched his career-high with four goals and picked up his 10th career hat trick, Law with three goals for his 11th hat trick of his career, Berg with two goals and Adamson and freshman attackman Tom Moore each with one goal.

Denver fired 57 shots in the contest, just three shy of the DU Division I single-game record, but Bellarmine senior goalkeeper Dillon Ward finished with 20 saves and held Denver to 11 goals. Ward came into the game as the top goalkeeper in the nation in save percentage and is ranked No. 3 in saves per game.

“We knew it was going to be a tough game, and their goalie was just phenomenal,” said head coach Bill Tierney. “I thought our guys played really hard. We have to give credit to the other team’s defense and goalie because they came out and played tough the entire game. The guys showed a lot of courage to  come back multiple times during the game to get the win.”

LaPlante and Faus split time again, with LaPlante five saves in the first half and Faus playing the second half and overtime periods and recording seven saves.

Senior attackmen Michael Ward and Lance Robinson, along with junior midfielder Cameron Gardner, led Bellarmine with two goals each, accounting for six of the team’s 10 goals.

The two teams played a scoreless nine minutes before Berg opened the scoring for the Pioneers with 5:30 remaining in the first quarter. Just two minutes later, the Knights leveled the score on a tally from Michael Ward, but the Pioneers answered with two seconds left in the first quarter after a field-long pass from LaPlante to Law, who beat Dillon Ward to take the lead at the close of the first stanza and account for LaPlante’s first career assist.

Bellarmine came out hot in the second period, scoring back-to-back goals to take a 3-2 lead just over two minutes into the second frame. Berg and Flin regained the Pioneer lead at 4-3 before the Knights evened the score with 6:50 remaining in the second quarter and sent the teams into intermission deadlocked at 4-4.

Two minutes into the second half, Flint found the back of the net again, putting Denver back on top before Adamson increased the lead to 6-4 with just over seven minutes remaining in the third stanza. Bellarmine knotted the game with  two straight goals from Robinson to tied the game and send both teams into the closing frame with six goals each.

The Knights continued their goal-scoring streak to four unanswered goals, taking an 8-6 lead with under seven minutes remaining in regulation, but the Pioneers netted back-to-back goals from Flint and Law, snapping a 15-minute scoreless period for the Pioneers to tie the game at 8-8 with 6:12 remaining.

The two teams exchanged goals from there to bring the score to 9-9 before Michael Ward found the net with less than three minutes left in regulation, giving Bellarmine a 10-9 advantage. Flint scored his fourth goal of the contest less than 30 seconds later to force overtime with the score knotted at 10.

Denver won the opening face-off in the first overtime period, followed by six shots on goal, but was held scoreless. Faus saved Bellarmine’s lone shot attempt, and a second overtime period was forced.

Bellarmine nabbed the opening face-off in the second overtime frame, but missed high on a shot and turned the ball over close to midfield, giving the Pioneers control again. After a Denver timeout with 2:05 remaining, Berg missed a shot wide of the net, which was picked up by the Pioneers and Flint circled the cage to find Law open on the left side to sneak it past ward, giving him the game-winner with 1:42 left in the game.

Carraro went 12-of-21 in face-offs and tallied six ground balls, while Denver held a 57-40 shot advantage, went 29-28 on ground balls and were a 19-of-19 on clears.

The Pioneers will hit the road next weekend, as take on the Greyhounds at 11 a.m. MT at Loyola.