#9 Endicott Moves Past Colorado College into NCAA Second Round

NCAA Tournament Interactive Bracket

BEVERLY, Mass. – The Endicott men's lacrosse team is on to the Second Round of the NCAA Division III Tournament for the fifth time in program history after the ninth-ranked Gulls rallied in the second half to beat at-large qualifier Colorado College 12-6 at Endicott Stadium Wednesday afternoon. Endicott outscored Colorado College 9-2 over the third and fourth quarters including a stretch of five straight goals to start the second half to erase a 4-3 halftime deficit.

Endicott (16-3) advances to face #10 Cortland State (15-4) on Saturday, May 9^th in Cortland, N.Y. for NCAA Second Round action. Game time is set for 5:00 p.m. The Red Dragons scored two fourth quarter goals in their First Round match up with Springfield to edge the Pride 9-8.

Gulls senior midfielder Joshua Tordik (Sayville, N.Y.) scored four times including back-to-back unassisted goals to start the third quarter as he tied the game 39 seconds into the period and again 40 seconds later to put Endicott on top for good 5-4. An unassisted goal by senior captain Harrison Cotter (Lordship, Conn.), senior attacker Kyle Weber's (West Hartford, Conn.) team-leading 59^th goal of the year from sophomore attacker Colin Bannon (Westport, Conn.), and a Will Jennings (Danvers, Mass.) tally from Mitchell Tapley (Falmouth, Maine) continued a streak of five-straight marks to push the Endicott lead up to 8-4 with 10:12 to go in the third.

With a four-goal lead to start the fourth quarter, Endicott would put the game away thanks to the solid play between the pipes by junior goalie Cameron Bell (Falmouth, Maine) who made four of his 14 saves in the final period. Bell improved to 16-3 as a starter this season as he was leaned on heavily, especially in the first half, to slow down a Colorado College attack that held a 3-1 lead after the first quarter and a 4-3 advantage at halftime. Senior attacker Nick Pinciaro (Beverly, Mass.), from Bannon, and a man-up goal by Jennings solidified the win with fourth quarter goals as the Blue and Green shutout the Tigers 2-0 over the final 15 minutes.

Colorado College (12-4) got a career-high 18 saves from junior goalie Chase Murphy (Cohasset, Mass.) who was electric in the first half with 12 saves and slowed down the nation's fourth-highest scoring offense to just three goals over two quarters.

After Tordik scored the game's opening goal just 37 seconds in, the Tigers responded to take a 3-1 lead by the end of the first quarter.  Freshman attacker Sam Dardani (Waccabuc, N.Y.) scored the first of his two goals of the game off a feed from junior midfielder Ian Pelto (Colorado Springs, Colo.) to tie the game at 1-1 with 12:23 on the clock. Four minutes later, Tigers leading goal scorer senior Henri Halle (Englewood, Colo.) put the visitors on top 2-1 as fired a shot past Bell with an assist to Taylor Paul (Bronxville, N.Y.). Over 90 seconds later at the 6:24 mark of the first quarter, senior midfielder Dylan Davie (Erie, Colo.) scored his lone goal to put Colorado College up 3-1 at the end of one.

Endicott's Weber netted his 11^th man-up goal of the season to start the second quarter but the Paul to Halle connection made it a two-goal lead again for the Tigers. With just under two minutes remaining until halftime, Pinciaro scored an unassisted goal as he collected a loose ball near the net and beat Murphy to pull Endicott to within one goal going into the break and set up his team's second half performance.

Defensively for Colorado College, junior defenseman Tim Jenkins (Baltimore, Md.) and sophomore long-stick midfielder Connor Haney (Seattle, Wash.) both had strong games with four and three caused turnovers, respectively. On the other side of the field, Endicott senior Ian Knechtle (New Canaan, Conn.) had three caused turnovers and five groundballs in the win.

Throughout the game, Endicott sophomore face-off specialist Tommy Hughes (Coram, N.Y.) consistently helped the Gulls maintain possession with 13-of-19 face-off victories with eight groundballs. His counterpart, freshman Jackson Kaplan (Glencoe, Ill.) won just six face-offs with two groundballs.

For the game, Endicott outshot Colorado College 46-31 and held a 39-25 groundball advantage. The Gulls were 16-of-18 on clear attempts and Colorado College was 16-of-20 with both teams committing just under 20 turnovers. Endicott went 2-of-5 with the man-advantage compared to just 1-of-4 for Colorado College.