WENHAM, Mass. – Trailing by a pair of goals entering the final quarter of play the Wentworth Institute of Technology men's lacrosse team outscored Gordon, 5-1 over the final 15:00 to take an 11-9 win in a Commonwealth Coast Conference contest Wednesday evening.
The Leopards improve to 4-10 overall and 2-4 in CCC play while the Fighting Scots drop to 1-12 (1-5).
Scoring runs were hard to come by on both sides with Wentworth answering the bell every time the Gordon put a goal up on the scoreboard. Roger Evans (Oxford, Pa.) started things off with a quick unassisted goal just a minute into the first quarter and the game slowed down a bit from there.
Nick Parent (Windham, N.H.) put the Leopards on the board at the halfway mark of the first quarter, but Gordon's Nick Tozier (Winston Salem, N.C.) put his team back up just before the end of the quarter.
Wentworth struck first in the second with Mike Coakley (Flemington, N.J.) finishing off a pass from Spencer Allen (New Boston, N.H.).
The back and forth continued for the rest of the half, including a goal for each team in the final 30 seconds. After Evans up the Scots up 4-3 with 25 ticks to go, Wentworth won the impending face off and Parent picked up a loose ball in front of the net to tie things up with only seven seconds on the clock.
Wentworth took its first lead of the game with Coakley's second strike of the game at the 10:30 mark in the third quarter, but three straight goals from the Scots gave the hosts a 7-5 lead and Gordon would lead 8-6 at the end of the third quarter.
A pair of Allen goals 1:19 apart early in the final stanza knotted the game at 8-all before Austin Early (Palmyra, Va.) finished off his second goal of the game to put the Scots back on top by one with 10:37 remaining in regulation.
However, Allen put his stamp on a busy fourth quarter by assisting on two of Wentworth's final three goals as the Leopards outscored the Scots 5-1 in the period. Parent and Coakely both finished off hat-tricks during a 3-0 run over the final nine minutes to take the victory.
Both goalkeepers made eight saves on the evening and Adam Dufault (Lexington, Mass.) earned his first win of the season in goal.
Gordon's Peter Kovacevic (Pittsburgh, Pa.) picked up 11 ground balls to lead all players in that category and won 15 of 24 face-offs on the night. Tim Parlato (Needham, Mass.) had nine ground balls for the Black & Gold while senior James Caldwell (New Milford, Conn.) caused three turnovers.
Wentworth hosts Salve Regina on Saturday night.
