Men’s Lacrosse Carves Path for Success with Second Win

The men’s lacrosse team was able to secure its second win in as many tries this past Saturday, taking down the Vermont Catamounts 10-6 at Andy Kerr Stadium. The Raiders still have not trailed for one second of the 2012 season, as they scored the first two goals of the contest against Vermont and never relinquished the lead. Vermont battled back to tie the game mid-way through the second quarter, but the Raiders always had a counterpunch to any Vermont run.

What is more, a Raider took home Patriot League Defensive Player of the Week for the second consecutive week, with senior long-stick midfielder Kevin Gordon taking home the hon­ors. Gordon scooped up seven groundballs and played an integral role in sparking the Raiders transition offense.

“While we haven’t blown out any teams yet, it’s only a matter of time before the of­fense starts firing on all cylinders,” Gordon said. “In the meantime it’s the defense’s job to limit runs by the other team and give our offense possessions.”

The Raiders came out hot right from the opening whistle, netting two goals within the first 90 seconds of the game. Both goals were tallied by senior attackman Jeff Ledwick. Led­wick led the Raiders with four points on the day, tallying three goals and an assist. The Colgate defense kept the Vermont offense at bay for over half the first quarter, but they got on the board with just over five minutes left in the first period.

The second period was defined by each team’s ability to answer goals from the other. Vermont then found the tying goal early in the second period, but the Raiders responded soon thereafter with a goal by junior midfielder Matt Baker on an assist from Ledwick. The physical­ity of the game picked up following the goal, and led to two Raiders being flagged for slash­ing penalties. This set up the first man-up op­portunity of the game, and Vermont capitalized on the opportunity to tie the game up with just over half of the second quarter left to play. The Raiders then took advantage of an extra man of their own when senior attackman Colby Wil­son found the back of the net. The goal gave Colgate the lead going into halftime up 4-3.

Colgate was able to get the first two goals of the second half to double up Vermont 6-3. Ju­nior midfielder Peter Baum tallied his first point of the game on an unassisted goal, followed by Wilson finding the back of the net for the second time in the contest. The two teams then traded goals for the remainder of the period, leaving Colgate with a three-goal advantage heading into the fourth at 8-5.

The Catamounts got the goal they needed to start a potential comeback when they notched the first goal of the fourth, leaving them down two with just under nine minutes left in the game. However, that was the last goal of the contest they would score. Colgate added two insurance goals late from Wilson and Baum to preserve the 10-6 victory.

Colgate held a huge advantage on face-offs, winning 16 of 20 face-offs on the afternoon, as well as more than doubling Vermont in shots 47-23. Senior goalie Jared Madison stopped 10 shots on the afternoon

“It certainly doesn’t hurt to pepper the goalie a bit,” Gordon said. “You’ve got to shoot to score, and we have a lot of confidence in our shooters this year. Additionally, when we domi­nate in face-offs like we did, it not only gives the offense a lot of opportunity, but it takes pressure off the defense. We know the other team won’t be getting goals in bunches.”

Colgate will try to run its record to 3-0 when they take on the Dartmouth Big Green this Sat­urday at Andy Kerr Stadium. The Big Green beat the Raiders in their last trip to Andy Kerr Stadium in 2010.

“Dartmouth is a team which has historically dominated Colgate in the overall series,” Gor­don said.”We all take a lot of pride in Colgate lacrosse and we use the fact that Dartmouth has the overall edge as motivation for Saturday.”

The game against Dartmouth is scheduled to start at 1 p.m. on Saturday at Andy Kerr Stadium.

Contact Steve Urban at

[email protected].