University of Richmond Athletics
Richmond Heads to First MLAX Conference Tournament
04/30/2014 | Men's Lacrosse
Richmond men's lacrosse will play in its conference tournament in its first year in the Division I sport, taking on host and top seed Mercer Thursday night at 7 p.m. at Mercer University Stadium in the Atlantic Sun Championships. The Spiders qualified as the four seed with a 4-10 record, 2-3 in league games. Mercer earned a share of the regular-season title with a 7-6 overall mark and 4-1 league record. The Bears' win over High Point in the regular season was the difference in the top seed and the right to host the Championships in Macon.
The Bears become Richmond's first repeat opponent, as the two teams played back on February 22. The Spiders led 5-4 at the half and 7-6 to start the third quarter before the Bears scored all five goals in the fourth to win 11-7. Spider J.P. Forester (Bloomfield Hills, Mich.) tied for the game-high lead with three goals in the contest, including both Richmond scores in the opening period. It was his first of two hat tricks in his freshman campaign.
Richmond landed five players on the ASun All-Conference teams this week, with Mitch Goldberg (Damascus, Md.) earning Freshman of the Year and First-Team honors. Joining Goldberg on the First Team is long stick Jackson Cabot (Dedham, Mass.). They were the only two freshmen to earn First-Team honors by the league.
The Spiders put three more student-athletes, sophomore attack Brad Burnam (Nedrow, N.Y.) and sophomore defenders Ryan Dennis (Peapack Gladstone, N.J.) and Brendan Hynes (Mahopac, N.Y.) all on the Second-Team.
The All-Freshman Team included Goldberg, Hynes and Forester, along with Jean-Luc Chetner (Pentiction, B.C.) and Dan Ginestro (Syracuse, N.Y.)
The Spiders finished with three wins in the last six weeks, and played 11 of their 14 season games to within four goals. Richmond led at the half in seven of their games this season and outscored their season opponents 76-69 in the combined first halves this season. Richmond has put nearly 60 percent of its shots on goal, and has scored 20 man-up goals, allowing 16 for the season. Richmond led the league in caused turnovers per game and finished second in clearing percentage and ground balls per game.
Hynes led the league in the regular season in caused turnovers per game, with Dennis finishing 10th in that category in conference. Burnam was third in the ASun in assists per game, while goalie Benny Pugh (Powhatan, Va. / Woodberry Forest School) was third in goals against average and save percentage.
The game will be available online for free at Atlantic Sun.TV and a Spider win would put them in the Championship game against the 3:30 p.m. Thursday winner of High Point/Jacksonville on Saturday afternoon at 1 p.m.
