GREENEVILLE, Tenn. --- Newberry College withstood a fourth-quarter surge from Tusculum University and held on for a 12-9 victory in South Atlantic Conference men's lacrosse action Saturday afternoon at Pioneer Field.
The Wolves (2-2, 1-1 SAC) held the Pioneers (4-1, 1-1 SAC) scoreless from late in the first quarter until the opening minute of the third quarter while building an 8-3 lead, then saw Tusculum score six goals in the fourth period. The Pioneers outshot the Wolves 16-6 in the fourth quarter and 41-30 for the match, but had just 22 shots on goal as a team.
Baker Westmoreland led the Wolves with three goals with Scott Reed adding a goal and two assists and Kyle Dunklee dishing out three assists. Caleb Forga and Milo Jones each scored twice for Newberry, with one goal apiece from Tim Roesler, Justin Messersmith, Bucky Bukta and Zachary Sunderland.
Tristan Kirkham led the Pioneers with two goals and an assist, with two goals apiece for Nate Raymond and Josh Pickford. Braden Elam, Lorenz Brown and Sean Dunn each had a goal and an assist for Tusculum, which was playing its first home game of the season after opening the year with four straight road victories.
Newberry jumped to a 3-0 lead after 5 1/2 minutes on goals by Bukta, Jones and Messersmith, before Tusculum got on the board on a goal by Kirkham with 7:55 left in the first quarter. The Wolves got the goal back 11 seconds later from Forga, but Brown and Dunn scored less than a minute apart late in the period as Tusculum trailed 4-3 after one quarter.
The second quarter saw the Wolves outshoot the Pioneers 11-7 and score all three goals in the frame. Roesler made it 5-3 on an end-to-end effort with 12:06 left in the half, Westmoreland barely beat the shot clock with 3:21 left for a 6-3 Wolves lead, and Reed scored with the man advantage with 0.4 left as Newberry took a 7-3 lead to intermission.
Westmoreland scored the only goal of the third quarter as Newberry carried an 8-3 advantage into the final quarter, before Raymond broke the drought with 14:10 remaining. Goals by Forga and Sunderland gave Newberry what seemed like a safe 10-4 lead with 10:52 to go, but the Pioneers fought back as Pickford, Elam and Kirkham scored just under 2 1/2 minutes apart to cut the Wolves' lead to 10-7 with 7:07 to play. Newberry came back with goals from Jones and Westmoreland to go back up by five with 2:10 left, and goals from the Pioneers' Raymond and Pickford in the final 90 seconds set the final margin.
Connor Coleman led the Pioneers on defense with six ground balls along with three caused turnovers, while Andy Michalski had four ground balls after finishing 11-for-20 on faceoffs. For Newberry, Alec Fletcher had four ground balls and Connor Bates collected four ground balls while going 8-for-16 on faceoffs.
Tusculum, the top faceoff team in Division II entering the game at 77.3 percent, went 12-for-23 on faceoffs against Newberry. The Wolves had a 28-23 advantage in ground balls over the Pioneers and had 16 clears in 20 attempts compared to 10-for-13 for the Pioneers. Newberry finished 1-for-4 with the man advantage while Tusculum came up empty on its two extra-man opportunities.
Jackson Von Eschen made his season debut in goal a successful one for Newberry by making 13 saves, while Ross Geiger had 11 saves in goal for Tusculum.
The Pioneers will travel to face seventh-ranked Lenoir-Rhyne on Saturday, March 13 at Hickory, North Carolina.
