Dennis Scannell’s game winning shot with 1:11 left in Saturdays men’s lacrosse game gave Stony Brook University a 10-9 victory against Villanova.
The Seawolves made a tremendous comeback from an 8-5 deficit in the fourth quarter to get the win.
‘This is the best game we ever played.’ Head Coach John Espey said.
The Villanova Wildcats made their presence known quickly in the first quarter jumping out to a 3-0 lead. But the Seawolves quickly responded with two goals from freshman Steve Conlon, then Brian Abrams adding a third.
Tied at three, with 5:24 to go, the Wildcats stepped up to the plate adding two more goals before halftime making it a 5-3 deficit for the Seawolves.
Villanova quickly scored coming out of halftime, but the Seawolves had an answer from Tris Gillen keeping the game close at 6-4. The Wildcats then made a run scoring two more goals and leading the Seawolves 8-4.
Yet again Stony Brook had an answer and this time coming from sophomore George LaFlare making it 8-5.
SBU scored two goals in the fourth quarter to take the lead. First by Matt Campolettano, at the 14:08 mark with and assist from LaFlare.
The second shot was a taken close to mid-field from Gillen that bounced inonly 34 seconds after Camploettano’s first goal.
Campolettano then followed with another goal at the 11:47 mark tying at 8-8. Senior Kevin Pall, Division I’s leader in goals per game, gave the Seawolvesthe lead for the first time with 10:05 remaining.
Villanova replied with a goal from junior Brian Marks tying the game at 9-9. Senior co-captain Dennis Scannell scored with 1:11 remaining in the game to seal the win for the Seawolves.
‘He was itching to take that shot,’ Espey said.
Scannell, ended the game with the winning goal and a assist.
The Wildcats and the Seawolves were statically even, each having nine saves by their goalies. Villanova picked up 47 ground balls and Stony Brook picked up 48, while the Wildcats had 30 shots on goal and 28 for the Seawolves.
But the difference came in the face-offs. Stony Brook tallied 16 face-offs while the Wildcats only having six, much to the credit of Dennis Nafte. Nafte is second in the nation in face-off percentage going into Saturday’s game.
‘Naftey is pretty good on face-offs,’ Espey said. ‘He surprises me. He has it down to a science.’
Though Nafte helped SBU on special teams the offense seemed a little sluggish at first. Not scoring in the first period and giving up three goals.
‘We needed to play hard, but sometimes we played to hard and got the penalties,’George LaFlare. ‘We wanted to keep the pressure on them, because we knewthey had to win it. We played great today I’m happy about that.’
