Breaking the tied game with 51.6 seconds remaining, Sean Doyle ’16 brought the men’s lacrosse team to an 8-7 win against Navy on Feb. 21. Passing the ball off to Doyle, midfielder Ryan Joseph ’15 assisted the winning goal and reached his career high of five points after already putting away four goals that game.

 Starting off the first half slowly, the Bison picked up momentum early in the second half. The team entered the half down 3-1. Joseph put two points on the board early in the third quarter to tie the game, but Navy answered back with two more goals.

“We started off pretty slow, and did not get many possessions in the first half. We knew what we had to do but we weren’t executing at the beginning of the game,” Joseph said. The Orange and Blue went down 3-1, but did not panic.

“We knew what we had to do in order to be successful and we came out firing in the second half. Thanks to Joseph, who got us started early on a quick goal in the beginning of the second half, we got momentum for the remainder of the game,” Doyle said.

Will Sands ’18 fed Connor O’Hara ’18, his first of three assists in the fourth quarter. Joseph then scored after an EMO and re-tied the game. After a Navy player was called on a stick check, giving the Bison a three-minute, non-releasable penalty, the Bison capitalized on this opportunity and gained a two-goal lead with shots from Joseph and Doyle, both fed by Sands. Navy then scored two goals as well to tie the game back up.

The midfield kept the team strong especially on the face-off. Gavin Sullivan ’15 won nine out of 16 face-offs. Two of the wins came after Navy tied the game back up with 3:27 to play. Midfielder Alex Spring ’16 came up with the ground ball after the first pivotal face-off win by Sullivan, which led to the game winning goal made by Doyle. The second was with ten seconds in the game remaining. Zach Henkhaus ’16 picked up the ground ball and gave it to attacker Thomas Flibotte ’16 who ran the clock out.

“In general, our team likes to play a settled 6v6 game, both on offense and defense. We are at our best when the offense is taking care of the ball and having long possessions. I think we did a good job limiting transition for Navy, and slowing the game down,” Joseph said.

The Orange and Blue defense also contributed greatly to the game. Goalkeeper Sam Grinberg ’15 had ten saves for the Bison and defender Lukas Munoz ’18 contributed three groundballs and two caused turnovers.

“I think defensively we felt as long as we could keep Navy from going up any more than a few goals, then we would have a chance to win the game. We made Navy work hard to score and came up with some huge stops. This win was really a full team effort,” Grinberg said.