VWC Defeats R-MC, 10-9, in Overtime
ASHLAND, Va. --- Seven seconds to
victory. That was the situation for Virginia Wesleyan
College's men's lacrosse team Wednesday as the Marlins used only
seven seconds in overtime to pull out a thrilling 10-9 victory over
the host Yellow Jackets of Randolph-Macon College in an Old
Dominion Athletic Conference quarterfinal tournament game.
Senior Adam Nycz fired in the decisive goal off a feed from
sophomore Nick Pappas, to send Virginia Wesleyan to its first ODAC
semifinal appearance since 2008. The victory, which avenged a
regular-season 8-4 loss to the Jackets in Ashland, improved VWC's
record to 10-6, tying the program record for victories.
Virginia Wesleyan advances to play on Saturday, April 28, at
Lynchburg College where the Marlins will face the nation's
third-ranked Hornets at 7 p.m. The winner advances to
the ODAC title game.
Nycz, who scored the Marlins' final two goals of the game, tallied
three overall to increase his season total to 41, the eighth
highest total in VWC history. It improved his career total to
128, only three shy of tying the program record of 131 set by Pete
Derby (1995-98).
Senior Travis Puls also scored three goals for VWC in a highly
competitive game from the start. The game featured four lead
changes and seven ties.
Randolph-Macon (9-8) opened its largest lead at 2-1 after Tyler
Midwinter scored with 3:11 remaining in the first
quarter. But, Virginia Wesleyan came back strong with three
goals over the next five minutes to turn the deficit into a 4-2
lead with 11:45 on the clock in the second quarter. Ian
Shankland, Pappas, and Puls scored the trio of VWC goals, with Mike
Tibbs and Mikey Connors assisting on the latter two.
It was the start of a see-saw battle the rest of the way, beginning
with three straight goals from the Jackets to push the host team
into a 5-4 lead ending the third quarter.
R-MC still led 6-5 three minutes into the fourth quarter when
Virginia Wesleyan mounted another scoring charge. Puls,
Andrew Adamson and Kyle Wright scored consecutively to give the
Marlins an 8-6 lead with 10:22 on the clock. The Jackets tied
it at 8-8, but Nycz came back for the Marlins to post a 9-8 lead
with 1:12 remaining.
Randolph-Macon played a game of beat-the-clock and won however, as
Patrick Egan took a pass from Tim Rowe to tie the game at 9-all
with only 11 seconds remaining in overtime.
Ball possession was key as the teams entered the four-minute
overtime session and Virginia Wesleyan came out on top when Conners
won the face-off, scooped up the ground ball and got it into
play. Seconds later Pappas and Nycz combined for the winning
goal.
An aggressive Virginia Wesleyan team posted a decisive 45-29
advantage in shots. R-MC finished with a 36-35 edge in ground
balls and a 12-11 edge in face-off wins. Ry Stanley led VWC
with six grounders and Sam Limpert won nine face-offs. Junior
Corey Bauer finished with eight saves.
Midwinter and Egan paced R-MC scoring with three goals each.
Sherif Dorhoud led the Jackets with eight ground balls and 12 face
off wins. Jason Crawford posted 16 saves.
This release is courtesy of the Virginia Wesleyan Sports Information department.
