Firebirds Win See-Saw Battle at Dominican, 13-11; Earn 2nd Victory of the Season

HILLBURN, NY – No more than two goals ever separated these two East Coast Conference foes, but the visiting University of the District of Columbia men's lacrosse team scored six of the game's final eight goals to push past Dominican College (NY), 13-11 for its 2^nd win of the season Tuesday afternoon at Torne Valley Sports Complex.

The Firebirds (2-5, 1-3 ECC), who picked up their first league win of the season, received a terrific effort by junior goalkeeper Pat Payne (Environmental Science – Catonsville, MD/CCBC Catonsville), who stopped a season-best, 62.1-percent of the shots he faced. He was one save shy of his season-high with 18 stops while allowing just 11 goals – the 2^nd fewest this year.

UDC was led offensively by sophomore midfielder Quinton Pavan (Childhood Education – Port Coquitlam, BC/Blue Ridge HS) and sophomore attack Chase Fraser (Elementary Education – Aldergrove, BC/Blue Ridge HS), who registered five points apiece. Pavan scored a game-high four goals and added one assist while Fraser unselfishly passed for a game-high three assists to go with two goals.

Defensively, senior Phillip Foster (Mass Media – Baltimore, MD/Dean College) and freshman Darien McPhail Millard (Psychology – East Windsor, NJ/Union County College) had four and three turnovers, respectively, and each scooped up a team-high six groundballs.

Dominican (1-7, 0-3 ECC) was led offensively by Conor Reeves (three goals on a game-high 12 shots) and Jimmy Anderson (two goals, three assists). Chargers goalkeeper Matthew Sandelier made 13 saves and allowed 13 goals in a complete game effort.

Anderson scored the game's first goal less than a minute into the action to give Dominican an early 1-0 lead. UDC took nearly six-and-a-half minutes to get on the board, but evened the score by way of senior attack Zach Kjeldsen's first of two goals on the day at the 8:34 mark. Pavan, who assisted Kjeldsen's goal, later scored an unassisted goal of his own almost four minutes later to put the Firebirds up, 2-1. Anderson struck again though with just 1:08 left in the opening period and forced a 2-2 tie at the first horn.

In the second quarter, UDC once again jumped out to leads of 3-2 and 5-3 only to have the Chargers answer right back and force two more ties. Senior Ben Taylor (Biology – New Westminster, BC/Simon Fraser University), Pavan and freshman Teilen Celentano (Accounting – Ottawa, ON/E.S.P. Louis-Riel) each scored for the Firebirds in the 2^nd period, but Dominican scored three goals in the period as well, including a buzzer-beating goal by Ryan Wiberly to force a 5-all tie at halftime.

The Firebirds scored two of the first three goals in the 3^rd period as Fraser's first goal of the day (with UDC down a player) gave the visitors a 7-6 advantage at the 8:48 mark. Thirty seconds later, however, Christopher Augustin kick-started a 3-0 Chargers surge that included back-to-back goals by Reeves at the 6:20 and 5:49 mark, and gave Dominican its largest lead of the day, 9-7. The Firebirds would respond with a 3-0 run of its own though, as Pavan scored at the 4:22 mark and sophomore attack Brock Thompson-Marshall (Business Management – Sooke, BC/Claremont Secondary) scored back-to-back goals at 2:22 and 1:50 to give UDC back the lead, 10-9 to end the period.

Fraser's 2^nd goal of the afternoon almost two minutes into the 4^th period made it an 11-9 UDC advantage and capped a 4-0 Firebirds surge that spanned two quarters. Twice, Dominican scored to pull within a goal of tying UDC, but Payne was up to the task, making six saves in the fourth quarter to preserve the 13-11 victory.  

Faceoffs and shots were pretty even, with Dominican winning one more faceoff (14-of-27 vs. 13-of-27) and UDC taking three more shots (39-36). The Firebirds did, however, have three less turnovers (30-27) and a sizable advantage in groundballs (43-33) and successful clears (20-of-22 vs. 12-of-23).

Next up, UDC will visit ECC foe Dowling on Saturday, April 4^th.