Wilkes Men's Lacrosse Clinches MAC Freedom Postseason Berth
EDWARDSVILLE, PA – The Wilkes University men's lacrosse team defeated FDU-Florham 13-5 on senior day to lock up the fourth and final seed in next week's Middle Atlantic Conference Freedom Championships. The Colonels earn a playoff spot for the first time since the rebirth of the program four years ago.
With the win, the Wilkes improves to 9-7 overall and 3-4 in the MAC Freedom.
The Colonels came out of the gate on fire as they scored the first four goals of the contest, all of them coming off the stick of John Wink (Glenside, PA/Abington), to build a 4-0 lead with 6:04 remaining in the opening quarter.
FDU-Florham got on the board with 4:20 left in the first but Wilkes held a three-goal advantage after the first 15 minutes of play.
The second quarter was a quieter one offensively as only two goals were scored, both of them by the navy and gold. Ethan Weaver (Olney, MD/James Hubert Blake) netted his 13th goal of the season just under six minutes into the period before Connor Daly (Oakhurst, NJ/Ocean Twp.) found the back of the net for the 25th time this season, thanks to Eric Ormsby (Warwick, NY/Warwick Valley), to give the Colonels a 6-1 lead at the break.
This time the Devils would come out of the locker room with some intensity as they scored the first three goals of the third, at 9:31, 8:32 and 6:23, to cut the deficit to two at 6-4.
Wilkes responded quickly with two goals in 1:12 as JT Weitzel (Hampstead, MD/North Carroll) found Weaver for his second of the game before Andrew Moynihan (Easton, MA/Lawrence Academy) won the ensuing faceoff and charged down the field to beat the Devils goalkeeper and give the navy and gold some breathing room at 8-4.
Alex Myers (Cortland, NY/Cortland) and Wink added tallies late in the quarter to push the Colonels advantage to 10-4 heading into the fourth quarter.
The offense kept their foot on the gas in the fourth as Weaver got the hat trick just one minute into the period off a setup by Nico Lorenzo (Howell, NJ/Howell).
With just over five minutes remaining, Wink scored his sixth goal of the contest and 54th of the season before Lorenzo added an unassisted goal in the waning minutes as Wilkes closed out a 13-5 win at the Ralston Athletic Complex.
Goalkeeper Carter Whittemore (Rochester, NY/West Irondequoit) came up with one huge save after another all day long as he finished with 13 for the game to improve his record to 6-7 on the year.
#4 Wilkes heads to #1 Eastern on Wednesday, May 1st for a MAC Freedom Semifinal matchup with the time to be determined.
