GREENEVILLE, Tenn. --- Nate Raymond finished with career highs of six goals and nine points and Tusculum University improved to 3-0 with a 20-15 victory over Chowan University in non-conference men's lacrosse action Saturday afternoon at Pioneer Field.
Kale Lawrence and Tristan Kirkham each scored four goals and Jordan Daniel added three tallies for the Pioneers, who built a 17-7 lead midway through the third quarter before the Hawks (0-2) ran off an 8-2 run to pull within four with under three minutes remaining. Lorenz Brown, Sean Dunn and Andy Michalski each had a goal and an assist and Wesley Phillips had four assists for the Pioneers, who outshot the Hawks by a 46-33 margin.
Jaxon Martin led Chowan with six goals and an assist, Eric George scored five goals and Jackson Downs had three goals and an assist, while Erik Dozzi had a goal and three assists for the Hawks. Chowan led 2-0 after five minutes, but scoring runs of five and six goals by Tusculum in the first half helped the Pioneers to a 13-7 halftime advantage.
Michalski went 25-for-39 on faceoffs for the Pioneers, the second-most faceoffs wins in a match in program history. He also collected 12 ground balls to lead all players, as the Pioneers had a 46-28 edge in ground balls for the afternoon. Tusculum was 2-for-2 on man-up opportunities and had 15 successful clears in 16 attempts.
Raymond finished one goal and one point shy of the program single-game records of seven goals and 10 points, set by Keegan Bell against Lees-McRae on Feb. 9, 2019. He broke his previous career bests of four goals and six points set in Tuesday night's 18-2 win over Shorter.
The 35 combined goals between the Pioneers and the Hawks were the most in a game in Tusculum program history, surpassing the 34 combined goals in a 22-12 Pioneer win over Barton on Mar. 9, 2019. The 25 faceoff wins for Tusculum as a team are tied for third-most in a single game in school history, while Michalski's 25 individual wins were one off the mark of 26 set by Ethan Bohannon against Coker on Apr. 6, 2018.
Tusculum fell behind 2-0 after five minutes on goals 22 seconds apart from the Hawks' Martin and George. The Pioneers got on the scoreboard with 8:45 left in the quarter as a full-field run from Bryce Grimball ended with a pass to Brown for Tusculum's first goal of the day. Raymond would tie the game 14 seconds later, and Kirkham put the Pioneers up 3-2 with 5:10 left in the quarter. Raymond's second of the day, followed seven seconds later by Michalski off a faceoff, extended the Tusculum lead to 5-2 with 4:24 left in the period. Chowan would bounce back on two goals from George to pull within 5-4 after a quarter.
The second quarter featured 11 goals, with eight from the Pioneers. Kirkham opened the scoring with a man-up goal with 12:43 left in the quarter, but Dozzi scored just over a minute later for Chowan to cut the Pioneer lead to 6-5. Tusculum responded with six straight goals, starting with a goal from Raymond off an assist from Nicholas Drennan. Daniel tallied 34 seconds later for an 8-5 Pioneer lead, then Lawrence scored three straight in a span of 3:13 as Tusculum went ahead 11-5 with 5:45 left in the quarter. Raymond's fourth goal of the match made it 12-5 Tusculum, and his fifth stretched the Pioneer lead to 13-6 with 1:54 left. George closed the scoring for the Hawks in the first half as the Pioneers carried a 13-7 lead to intermission.
The scoring barrage continued with nine goals between the teams in the third quarter, starting with four in a row from the Pioneers. Kirkham, Dunn, Lawrence and Daniel scored in the first 6 1/2 minutes of the period as Tusculum took a 17-7 lead, but Chowan rallied back as Martin and Dwons scored twice apiece in a three-minute span to pull the Hawks within 17-11. Raymond's sixth of the day with 44 seconds left in the quarter pushed the Pioneers up 18-11 heading to the fourth.
A goal from Daniel with 12:11 left made it 19-11 Tusculum, but Chowan would again run off four straight goals to cut the lead to 19-15 on a goal from Martin with 2:22 remaining. Kirkham closed out the scoring with his fourth of the afternoon with 1:10 to go.
In addition to his three goals and two assists, Daniel had five ground balls along with Brown for the Pioneers. Hassan Davis led Chowan with four ground balls, but was just 13-for-36 on faceoffs against Michalski. Tusculum finished the match with 15 turnovers while Chowan had 18 turnovers as a team. The Hawks were 1-for-2 with the man advantage and 17-for-23 on clears.
Ross Geiger played all 60 minutes in goal for the Pioneers and made six saves, while the Hawks split time between starter Alec Rodopoulos (four saves) and backup Nathan Woodhill, who had seven saves in the second half.
The Pioneers host Lees-McRae on Wednesday, Feb. 16 at 7 p.m. at Pioneer Field in the fourth of six non-conference games this season.
