The Grand Canyon University Men's Lacrosse Team had one of their better scoring performances of the season this past Sunday – putting in a season-high 15 goals – as they defeated conference rival San Diego State University, 15-11, at Prescott Field on GCU's Campus.
"We had really good offense in the first half, scoring 11 goals," said GCU Men's Lacrosse Head Coach Jeff Guy. "Using our game plan of attacking them (SDSU) in transition and behind the cage helped us jump out early."
The first half of the game started with GCU flexing their offensive muscles, scoring five goals in the 1st quarter and six in the 2nd. Attackman Liam Reid assisted on a handful of the scores tallying seven total assists for the game.
Attackman Tyler Parietti and midfielder Cameron Gilmore took turns scoring on an Aztec defense that couldn't seem to figure GCU out. The Lopes entered halftime up 11-4.
San Diego State then opened the 3rd quarter on a run of their own, cutting the Lopes' lead down to 3 by the end of the quarter.
"Our team knew that this Aztec squad would come out hungry today," said Guy. "They started to come back on us in the second half, but we were able to finish down the stretch."
SDSU needed a win against the Lopes to keep their SLC Conference Tournament hopes alive, but GCU intended to thwart these hopes.
"Every conference game is a fight to the end, and we took our foot off the gas a little bit," said Lopes' midfielder Austin Saupe. "We just had to change our mentality and close it out."
Saupe delivered two crucial goals for the Lopes in the final minutes of the match, putting it out of reach for SDSU, who had briefly cut the lead to a single goal.
The Lopes return to Prescott Field to host University of California Los Angeles this Saturday at 11:00AM on the GCU campus.
