Eagles Pick Up Final Regular Season Win at St. Andrews
David Finney | photo by Gian-Luca Fahling
Laurinburg, NC - The regular season for Men's Lacrosse came to an end on Saturday with an away game with St. Andrews. The Eagles have had much success this season-opening up with several exhibition NCAA division teams and picking up wins. Once they got into NAIA and conference play, the winning continued, however, the Eagles did not have the luxury of playing several home games. A majority of their games were on the road because that was what the team had to do in order to get teams to play them. They traveled as far as South Florida for a few games and also into Kentucky to play a couple of Northern area teams. In all, they had a solid 12-1 record and 6-1 in conference play. The one loss came from rival, Keiser, which they had to travel to South Florida to play. They only lost by one goal and most likely they will get to face Keiser again in the playoffs.
In the game with St. Andrews, the Eagles were all business and took the game early. Tyler Wilkinson would score in the first couple of minutes in the game from an assist from Cameron Cochran. Wilkinson would have a huge day scoring 7 goals which would lead the Eagles. Cochran would lead the Eagles in assists with 5. Wilkinson would have 5 of his goals in the first quarter alone.
Dillan Bousquet would be the next to score in the first quarter and he would be the next in line with goals at 4 goals. The Eagles have a solid and deep lineup which have threats at every position. If someone is having an off-night or being singled out by the defense, then the next man steps up to lead the Eagles to the needed goals.
The Eagles would shut out St. Andrews in the whole first half, 11-0. Liam Wright and the Eagle defense are tough and solid. It is tough to get good shots on this team which allows the offense to open up and score transition goals. Besides Wilkinson and Bousquet, Brady Hanak and Wyatt Maddox both score in the first half to put the game on ice. Hanak had two goals in the first half and Maddox had one.
The Eagles would keep up the pressure in the second half adding a few more to their goal total, however, they would give up one goal late in the third quarter and another about halfway through the fourth. The goals were not a threat because the game was way out of reach at this point. The Eagles would walk away with the dominating win 16-2 and now their focus can be on the conference tournament which they will find out their opponent after the quarterfinal games that are happening on Saturday, April 16th. The semi-final game will take place on Saturday, April 22nd at Ken White Field in Waleska. More information to come as the tournament plays out.