University of Richmond Athletics
MLAX Vies For League Title In Inaugural Season
05/03/2014 | Men's Lacrosse
In its first season of Division I lacrosse, the Richmond Spiders will compete in its conference championship game, taking on High Point Saturday at 1 p.m. at Mercer University Stadium for the Atlantic Sun Conference title. The Spiders enter the championship at 5-10, with five wins in its last 10 games. High Point, which shared the conference championship with Mercer, enters at 9-6.
In Thursday night's semifinals, Richmond defeated the Bears on their home field by a 14-6 score, the Spiders highest-scoring game of the season and largest margin of victory against a team in the program's brief history. High Point outlasted Jacksonville 12-11 in the other semifinal of the opening day of the Championships.
In the Mercer win, Richmond's Alex Hatem (Syracuse, N.Y.) produced a career-high four goals as the Spiders gave up one goal to start and then scored seven straight to run away with the game. League Freshman of the Year Mitch Goldberg (Damascus, Md.) added three goals to retain his team lead with 29 season goals. Goalie Benny Pugh made eight saves in the win.
Goldberg's last goal of the game, with 1:43 remaining in regulation, was the 100th goal scored by a Spider freshman this season. the remaining 40 goals scored by the Spiders were by non-freshman, the second-highest percentage of freshman goals on a team in the NCAA this season (Boston).
Richmond led at the half in all three games against teams at the ASun Tournament, including against the Panthers. Richmond led 6-2 at the half and 7-4 after three quarters before losing 11-7 at home on April 12.
The game is available for free on ASun.TV, beginning at 12:50 p.m.
The winner earns the Atlantic Sun's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, with many publications projecting the winner will play one of two Wednesday night mid-week play-in games, at campus sites. Official selections will take place Sunday night at 9 p.m. on ESPNU.