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Sports Men's lax knocks off No. 4 Post
By Chris Davis Sports editor To ring the Sister Damien Bell in Garvey Park is a memorable tradition and honor for any Mercyhurst College Athletic Team, which occurs on the Erie campus only after an impressive or thrilling win. The No. 10 Mercyhurst men's lacrosse team led by head coach Chris Ryan rang that bell after pulling off a spectacular upset with a near-perfect defensive effort in defeating No. 4 C.W. Post 9-1 on Saturday at Tullio Field in East Coast Conference (ECC) play. Mercyhurst picked up a come from behind win on Wednesday over Seton Hill 13-5, as the Lakers held the Griffins scoreless during the entire second half of the contest. "Ninety percent of the credit goes toward the players and the other 10 percent goes toward (assistant) Coach (Brenden) Burke, who came up with a great defensive scheme to shut down Post's offense," Ryan said during the Lakers' tailgate put on by numerous amounts of the players' parents. Mercyhurst keeps its run alive for a conference championship with the win, improving to 6-3 on the season, (3-1 ECC). C.W. Post dropped to 8-3 on the season and 1-2 (ECC). "We tried to keep doing the same thing (throughout the game) and shut off (Greg) Cerar (who came into the contest ranked third in the nation in scoring and fourth in points) and I think we were the first team to shut him (Cerar) off with a long pole," said Burke. "When he did get the ball (junior) Matt Spahr did a great job on him, taking away his strong left hand...We doubled hard and held him to only two shots on the day and (junior net minder) Jason LaShomb made some very good saves...Good players don't always have the best of days and luckily Cerar didn't show up on us." "It started from our goalie and our leader Jason LaShomb making big saves, 17 (total)," Burke said. "Six on six we played excellent...(the defense) did a great job taking the body and being physical for 60 minutes." Many of the career-high 17 saves made by LaShomb came from point blank range. "The game plan really put us in a position to succeed and our defense played hard and executed the game plan and thats really what we did," said junior Mike Thon, who played a crucial role in the Lakers' offensive and face-off success. "I would give all the credit to the (defense); they played well and they locked off when they had to lock off and Jay was making saves all day," senior and team captain Scott Sullivan said. "(On offense) we were getting looks all day, we just needed to wait for the ball to drop." Mercyhurst did have to battle back from an early deficit, as the squad trailed 1-0 after the first period. The Lakers battled back in the second as junior Ryan Arnold scored his first of two goals and Sullivan found the back of the net to take a 2-1 lead. Sullivan scored his fifth goal of the year with a ripper from seven yards away with 4:59 remaining in the second period, which turned out to be the game winner. Lakers' sophomore Tyler Burton gave the team cushion in the third period scoring his first of two goals with 9:54 remaining on an assist from sophomore Trevor Rice. Junior Aaron Manzer and Arnold would each add a goal to give Mercyhurst a 5-1 lead heading into the final period. "We ran three lines of middies and everyone played within themselves, taking what the defensive gave and thats how you have to be successful, and we finished on our opportunities, so we took advantage on the opportunities we were given," Thon said. "We were able to run a lot of guys and that kept us fresh heading into the fourth quarter. We had a four goal lead (up 5-1), so we knew we just had to out work them to keep the lead and thats what we did and it ended up working for us. "We started off the season a little rough getting beat by Le Moyne so badly, but after that we never gave up we have been sticking to the basics and good defense," said junior Luke Prattico who helped anchor the Lakers defense. "Jason [LaShomb] stood on his head, he carried our scheme, as he won us the game. Without him making those saves we couldn't have done what we did." In the fourth period, graduate student Jordan Witt, junior captain Mike Bartlett and Burton sealed the victory by swirling a goal each to wrap up the 8-1 victory. Mercyhurst is now 42-4 at home in eight seasons under Ryan and will look to extend its four game winning streak when they host Wheeling Jesuit today at 4 p.m. and Notre Dame De Namur Saturday at 1 p.m. "We can take a lot from this game," said Thon. "We played 60 minutes and if we can keep that up we can play with anybody so we need to keep working hard and staying focused and keep executing." "We started matching as a team, we started playing together, we started clicking," Prattico said. "We gotta keep taking it one game at a time; we cannot look ahead." Sullivan agrees. "We have a young team," he said. "The young guys are really starting to pick it up towards the end of the season. The (defense) is coming together and Lashomb is leading back there (in goal) and they're going to only get better as the year goes on. With everyone picking it up towards the end we are looking to make a final push; we should be all right."
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