Photo by:

Freshman Jamie Lincoln broke current assistant coach Matt Brown’s record for most goals in a season by a freshman when he scored nine goals last weekend when Denver defeated visiting Quinnipiac Bobcats 14-8 Friday night and the Bellarmine Knights 14-12 on Sunday afternoon. “I wasn’t really aware of the record until a few games ago when I was told. I love scoring goals, and I have always scored the most goals for the league I have played for, and I don’t expect not to score goals,” said Lincoln. He has now scored 35 goals this season. The win over Bellarmine on Sunday was Denver’s sixth win in a row, and the Pioneers are undefeated in conference play. “Absolutely, undefeated in conference play is where we want to be,” said Head Coach Jamie Munro on the team’s Lincoln, junior Cliff Smith, sophomore Ilija Gajic and senior Jon Paulson all had multiple points contributing to Denver’s win on Friday night. Lincoln had two goals in the first four minutes, and Charley Dickenson scored his career-high fifth goal of the season in the first period. At halftime Denver was up 7-2 with second period goals from Paulson, Lincoln and Anderson. At the end of the third period Denver was up 11-5. Lincoln scored twice and sophomore John Dickenson and Smith also scored. Quinnipiac cut down Denver’s lead twice in the fourth quarter, brining the score to 11-7 and 12-8, but Denver emerged victorious. Junior goaltender Austin Konkel had four saves for DU, and sophomore Peyton Tyrie had three. In their game against Bellarmine on Sunday the Pioneers honored the five seniors on the team: Andrew Bourke, Brett Koll, Carlos Navarro, Dustin Palmer and Jon Paulson. Sunday was their final game at Barton Lacrosse Stadium. Denver started out strong with a goal from Paulson in the first 13 seconds. A minute and a half later, Denver was up 2-0 with a goal from Koll. Bellarmine came back and tied the game 2-2 at the end of the first quarter. The Knights were up 4-2 in the second before junior Joey Murray put in two consecutive goals to tie the game. Sophomore Ilija Gajic also scored in the second to put DU up 5-4 at halftime. In the third quarter, Denver and Bellarmine traded goals: Denver had two from Smith. Lincoln broke a 7-7 tie with 6:58 left in the fourth and just 42 seconds later, he scored again. Smith had an unassisted goal with 5:51 remaining in the game, putting Denver up 10-7 and completing a hat trick. The Knights brought the score to 10-8, but Denver returned with three more goals from Lincoln, Murray and Smith in the beginning of the fourth, giving Denver a five-goal lead, 13-8. Denver managed to hold off Bellarmine though they had three goals in the last few minutes of the game. Freshman Ryan Driver recorded his first collegiate goal in the fourth. Junior Austin Konkel made eight saves for DU against Bellarmine. “A wins a win. It is so hard to get a win in Division 1 lacrosse, it wasn’t pretty. I think the guys all know that, but we did what we had to do,” said Coach Munro. The team faces Ohio State on Saturday, at 9 a.m. “Ohio State has one of the best offense’s in the country if not the best, so we will have our hands full,” said Munro. “It is huge. It means a lot for our tournament seeding and overall rankings, and we are going to play in front of 70,000 people so it will be exciting.” The team then travels to Air Force on Saturday, April 26, at 1 p.m. to end the regular season.