University of Richmond Athletics
Men's Lacrosse At Home For Regular-Season Title
04/24/2015 | Men's Lacrosse
Richmond men's lacrosse will attempt to win its first regular-season conference title when the Spiders host Mercer Saturday, starting at noon at Robins Stadium. Admission is free and the Spiders will honor their first senior class before the game.
Both the Bears and Spiders sport identical 5-0 league marks, with Richmond mowing through the Southern Conference by an average score of 15-5, while the Bears were pushed to overtime in three of the five contests, winning by an average of 11-8. The winner hosts next week's Southern Conference Championships.
Mercer is 0-6 out of conference, while the Spiders are 4-4. Richmond has won five of its eight home games to this point.
Richmond has won three in a row for the first time in school history and has already surpassed last season's inaugural win totals overall and in league. Richmond held Bellarmine scoreless in the second half last week to win 11-6 and secure its first win when trailing at the half this season. It was also the first time the Spiders defense held an opponent scoreless in the second half in the 30-game history of the program.
Richmond also got its all-time record to 15-15, the second-fastest to a .500 record for a lacrosse program starting after 2000. With a win Saturday, Richmond can become the first program to get to 10 wins before their conference tournament oin their first or second year since 2000.
The Spiders have six players with 10 or more goals, including three past the 20-goal mark. Sophomore J.P. Forester (Bloomfield Hills, Michigan), the reigning SoCon Offensive Player of the Week, leads the team with 27 goals and 16 assists for 43 points. He sits third in assists per game, fifth in goals per game and tied for third in points per game in the league so far this season.
Defensively, the Spiders are tops in the conference in save percentage, goals-against average and caused turnovers per game. Richmond is fourth in the country for scoring defense and sixth in margin of victory in the NCAA this week. Sophomore defenseman Brendan Hynes (Mahopac, New York), the back-to-back reigning SoCon Defensive Player of the Week, is 10th in the nation for caused turnovers per game, after finishing seventh in the nation in that category a year ago as a freshman.
Mercer, which won a share of the 2014 Atlantic Sun Conference title, is 9-1 in regular-season conference games under head coach Kyle Hannan. They lost only to High Point in conference play last season and shared the title with the Panthers and were the host for the inaugural ASun Championships, in Macon, Georgia last May.
The Bears defeated Jacksonville in double overtime to stay in the race for the outright league title. Mercer led 8-2 before the half and gave up six-straight goals to the Dolphins before scoring in the second overtime period for the win.
Chris Baxa leads the Bears with 21 goals, while teammate Chris Rahill has 17 goals and 13 assists for a team-best 30 points. Goalie Mike Nugent has made all 11 starts for the Bears and has a goals-against average of 11.11 with 147 saves and 123 goals allowed.
The SoCon Championships will be Thursday evening for the two semifinal games, with the title game starting at 2 p.m. on Saturday. The Championship game will be broadcast on ESPN3. Richmond won last year's ASun Tournament by defeating both regular-season co-champions at Mercer last May to become the first time to advance to the NCAA Tournament in their first season of varsity lacrosse since the tournament began in 1971.
