University of Richmond Athletics
Men's Lax Makes First Trip To Jacksonville Sat.
03/20/2015 | Men's Lacrosse
Richmond men's lacrosse will play its first road Southern Conference game when the Spiders make a first-ever trip to Jacksonville Saturday, with the opening faceoff scheduled for 1 p.m. at D.B. Milne Field.
This is the first time the Spiders will play an opponent for a second time after winning the first meeting. In last season's inaugural campaign, the Spiders beat the Dolphins 13-12 in the final home game for Richmond of the season. That win became the tiebreaker that got the Spiders into the Atlantic Sun Tournament, leading to their eventual win and NCAA Tournament berth.
In that first meeting, the Spiders led 8-5 at the half, but JU got the game tied at 10 and took a 12-11 lead with 9:37 remaining in regulation, but a tying goal from Jean-Luc Chetner (Penticton, Canada) at 6:27 and the man-up game-winner from Alex Hatem (Syracuse, New York) with 31 seconds left put away the win and the tournament berth. Hatem had three goals, with three other Spiders garnering two goals each.
The Spiders currently sit at 4-3 on the season, already matching last year's total of regular-season wins, and 1-0 after opening the SoCon campaign with a 20-1 home win over VMI. The Spiders fell 16-11 to No. 2 North Carolina last Saturday 16-11 in a driving rainstorm. That broke a two-game win streak for the Spiders. Richmond's only road game resulted in a win, 8-7 at Mount St. Mary's on March 11.
Richmond has hung its hat on defense. The Spiders are third in the NCAA in caused turnovers, fifth in clearing percentage, eighth in man-down defense and scoring defense and 13th in scoring margin. Sophomore goalie Benny Pugh (Powhatan, Virginia / Woodberry Forest School) is fifth in the country in save percentage and 12th in saves per game. Richmond is second in the league with 11.1 goals scored per game.
Jacksonville is 4-2, 1-0 in the SoCon. The Dolphins won 8-3 at VMI last weekend to start league play. The VMI game was their first road game of the year as well after starting 3-2 at home to start the year.
Jacksonville has been more offensive, with the Dolphins 15th in assists per game and 21st in the NCAA. Individually, Tom and Rob Moore are fourth and 24th in the nation in assists per game, while Tom Moore is seventh in points per game. Jacksonville is just behind Richmond with 11 goals per game this season. The Dolphins have been held under 12 goals only last weekend at VMI in the rain.
Due to Jacksonville hosting the opening weekend of NCAA men's basketball, there will be no live video of the game, but live stats are available on judolphins.com
