MELBOURNE, Fla. --- The Florida Tech men's lacrosse team jumped out to a 9-0 lead but had to hold off a furious Tusculum charge as the Panthers edged the visiting Pioneers 13-11 Friday night in the season-opener for both teams.
Florida Tech led 9-0 with 7:18 remaining in the second quarter before the Pioneers unleashed a scoring onslaught of their own with seven straight goals to pull the Black & Orange back into the game.
Jason Terry scored a game-high five goals for the Panthers
(1-0), including his team's last three goals of the contest.
Nate Wade scored three goals, while Chris Ryan added two goals in
their Tusculum debuts. TC also got single goals from Ben Boyd,
Mitch Chapman, Steven Raimondi, Andrew Kransberger, Jack Timerson
and Dallas Wade. Florida Tech's Charlie Morrisette, Zach Wynne and
Andrew Conley contributed two goals apiece, while Christian Isola
and Austen Zugelter added single goals for the Panthers.
Tech got five goals in the first quarter and tallied four more in the opening 7:32 of the second to take a 9-0 lead. Dallas Wade got TC on the board with his goal at the 4:03 mark. His cousin Nate Wade followed with a goal 14 seconds later. Ryan followed scored with 32 seconds before halftime as TC trailed 9-3 and carried the momentum into the locker room.
The Pioneers kept the pressure on by opening the third quarter with a 4-0 run as Ryan notched his second goal of the night, while Nate Wade also posted his second scoring tally as the Pioneers took advantage of a man-up opportunity, Andrew Kransberger scored an even strength goal at the 4:38 mark of the third and Chapman capped the TC run with his man-up goal with 3:49 left in the quarter to bring Tusculum to within 9-7.
Isola ended the Tusculum spurt with his unassisted goal at the 3:30 mark of the third, but Raimondi answered for the Pioneers with 36 seconds left in the period as TC trailed 10-8. Terry scored his third goal of the night with six seconds left in the frame as the Panthers carried an 11-8 advantage into the final 15 minutes.
Timerson found the back of the net with his man-up goal with 11:09 remaining in regulation. Nate Wade notched his third goal of the night to trim the deficit to a single goal (11-10) with 8:44 left on the clock.
Terry scored his fourth goal with 7:47 left to push the FIT lead back to two, but TC answered back with Boyd's scoring tally with 3:21 remaining.
The Pioneers were whistled for a slashing penalty with 2:19 remaining. Terry and the Panthers added an insurance goal with the man-up advantage as Terry found the back of the goal with 1:49 left to provide the final scoring margin.
Tusculum outshot Florida Tech 45-44, including 24-17 in the second half.
Tusculum goalie Kevin Haggerty finished the game with 14 saves while his FIT counterpart Eric Biller tallied 13 stops for the Panthers.
TC finished the game with 29 ground balls, including four each by Coogan Lethco and Thomas Loudon. Jake Smith caused three turnovers for the Pioneers. Florida Tech accounted for 50 ground balls, including a game-high seven from Isola and Travis Wunder. Wunder also went 19-of-28 in the faceoff dot, including 4-of-6 in the fourth quarter.
TC went 3-for-6 with the extra man, while Florida Tech went 3-of-4 with the man advantage.
The Pioneers (0-1) will wrap up their Florida road swing on Sunday when they take on fourth-ranked Tampa at 12 p.m.
- TC -