One game at a time.
After falling to BYU in their home opener on Friday, the Grand Canyon University Men's Lacrosse team rebounded well Monday afternoon with a thrilling 11-10 overtime win over Northeastern University at GCU Soccer Stadium. The Lopes evened their overall record at 2-2, and snapped the Huskies' four-game winning streak.
It took only two minutes and 25 seconds for Northeastern attackmen Tim Burr and Brad Peterson to put their team ahead, 2-0. The Lopes looked out of sorts early but responded with a pair of their own scores via Tyler Parietti and Grayson Goodyear - the latter set up nicely by Cam Gilmore curling around the crease.
From there, the remainder of the opening quarter was a defensive battle. Northeastern struggled to get the same quality looks they had been seeing while GCU struggled to clear the ball after Huskies' misses. Northeastern's Liam Thompson scored off a shot from far outside right before the quarter expired to give the Huskies a 3-2 lead.
GCU's Cayden Flores, Nick Whittall and Gilmore all scored in the second quarter, but the Lopes settled for a 5-5 tie at halftime.
"We have seven turnovers and they've scored twice off of those," said GCU Head Coach Jeff Guy at halftime. "We need to clean up those mistakes and stick to the game plan."
After GCU's Liam Reid and the Huskies' Burr each began the second half with a goal, the GCU offense opened up. Whittall and Reid each scored their second goals in the 2nd minute of the half to give the Lopes an 8-6 edge, and Gilmore later added his second goal to expand the GCU lead to three before Northeastern quickly answered to cut the Lopes' lead to 9-7 after three quarters.
The fourth quarter lived up the hype as the Huskies shifted the momentum, scoring three straight goals to take a 10-9 lead with just over six minutes left.
GCU's Matt Hartig delivered on a face off while the Huskies received two 30-second penalties for holding and tripping to give the Lopes a chance to tie with four minutes remaining, but Northeastern successfully killed the penalty. That set the stage for Whittall – GCU's scoring leader on the season - to secure his hat trick with a missile from the right side to tie it at 10 with two minutes left.
A broken Northeastern possession led to an unbelievable play from Gilmore in front of the goal for the would-be game-winning score, but it was waved off due to a crease violation, much to the dismay of the crowd. Northeastern then attacked with six seconds remaining, but GCU's goalie Jake Hives secured a massive save to send the game to overtime.
A handful of empty offensive trips for both teams sent every fan in the stadium to the edge of their seats until GCU's Kyle Capshaw ripped one into the Northeastern net to score the game winning goal.
The Lopes return to the GCU Soccer Stadium field this Saturday, March 11 against Utah Valley University. The game starts at 1:00 PM, and admission is FREE.
