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PITTSFORD, N.Y. -- What seemed improbable just two weeks ago became reality Sunday for the Nazareth men's lacrosse team. Staring at a 6-6 overall record after a one-sided home-field loss to Stevens, Nazareth completed its full recovery Sunday by winning its fifth straight game, a convincing 9-4 triumph at St. John Fisher in the Empire 8 Conference championship game before nearly 2,000 fans at Growney Stadium.
The victory, Nazareth's second upset win of the weekend, boosted the Golden Flyers' overall record to 11-6 and secured them their 18th trip to the NCAA Division III Tournament. Nazareth knocked off the tournament's top seed, third-ranked Ithaca, Friday, 13-12 in overtime. St. John Fisher, 15-3 overall, had beaten the Golden Flyers 13-12 back on April 15.
"It's huge obviously," said Nazareth Coach Rob Randall. "We've been counted out multiple times this season and the kids have stayed on course and responded to the challenge each time."
The playoff picture looked cloudy at best for the Golden Flyers following a 20-10 setback to Stevens at Golden Flyer Stadium April 19. Nazareth was able secure the fourth seed for the E8 Tournament, however, by defeating RIT 12-10 last Saturday. E8 Tournament wins over Ithaca and Fisher followed and now the Golden Flyers will be closely monitoring Sunday's evening's NCAA Tournament selection show to be aired on the CBS College Sports Network at 10 p.m..
Fisher scored the first goal of Sunday's game, before Nazareth rallied to score the next three and never trailed again. Nazareth led 5-3 at halftime and 7-4 after three quarters.
Freshman
C.J. Estes and senior
Sean Dennison each had two goals and one assist and junior
Mike Cummings also delivered two goals. Sophomore
R.J. Gringeri won 10 of 17 face-offs to enable Nazareth to control time of possession. Junior goalie
Todd Dermody followed up Friday's 19-save performance at Ithaca with seven saves Sunday and was named tournament most valuable player.
"We knew we had to take care of the ball and control time of possession," Randall said. "They dominated us on face-offs last time, so it was good to see R.J. step up for us."
Fisher took a 1-0 lead on a goal by Connor Henderson just 35 seconds into the game. Sophomore midfielder
Scott Castle scored on Nazareth's first shot of the game to tie the score at 1-1. Dennison then set up Cummings with the go-ahead score and followed with an unassisted score of his own to make it 3-1.
In the second quarter, junior
Jay Willmes netted his third goal of the season off a pass from Estes and Cummings scored off an assist from Castle to give Nazareth a 5-3 advantage at halftime.
Neither team scored for more than nine minutes to open the third quarter before Fisher's Kyle Denhoff scored unassisted to make it 5-4. Dennison answered for Nazareth just 11 seconds later and Estes contributed his 30th goal of the season off an assist from
Erinn O'Hara with just :09 left in the third quarter to extend the lead to 7-4.
Nazareth played deliberately in the fourth quarter and took just three shots with two finding the back of the net. O'Hara scored unassisted with 10:02 left and Estes delivered his second goal of the game off a pass from
Joe Jacobs-Ferderbar with 6:53 left to seal the win.
Nazareth had a 33-25 advantage in shots and was successful on 23 of 24 clearing attempts. Estes and Gringeri each had five ground balls and
Alex Cole and Dennison had four each. Nazareth's close defenders
Nick Lucarelli,
Brian Orr and
Mitchel Frey were responsible for neutralizing Fisher's high-scoring attack trio of Henderson, Dave Malone and Chris Schmidt as they combined for just two goals and one assist.