HIGH POINT, N.C. – High Point men's lacrosse dominated back on home turf in a morning matchup against the Detroit Mercy Titans Saturday. The Panthers secured their first win of the season, 17-2, while 57 players saw action in the contest.
Head coach
Jon Torpey: "I like the way the guys bounced back after Tuesday, playing such a high-quality opponent in Duke, and then doing that again today against Detroit Mercy. There were a lot of things that we felt like we needed to fix that were off, and we challenged the guys. We only really had two days, after giving the guys a day off on Wednesday. Thursday was lighter, and Friday we got after it to address some deficiencies. I was really proud of the way the guys attacked the day today."
Colin Hoben opened up the game with a clean faceoff win, and went 71% in the first quarter, winning five out of seven at the X.
Jack Vanoverbeke opened up a big-scoring day with the first goal of the game and added another before the end of the first quarter.
Minutes after Vanoverbeke's goal,
Henry Mudlaff caused a turnover on the other end, passing it down the field to
Michael Ippolito, who crossed the ball to
Brayden Mayea for a beautiful quick-stick goal.
Jaxson Lamb got on the scoring sheet, netting a man-up goal off a rip from distance. Detroit Mercy tallied their first goal with just under four minutes of play in the first quarter but would not score again for the next two and a half quarters.
Face-off specialist
Luca Accardo scored his first career-goal to make it a 7-1 game early in the second quarter.
VanOverbeke added consecutive goals for HPU in the second quarter to extend the Panther lead with five minutes remaining in the half.
Lamb and Rizzo each added their second goals of the day to close out the half. The Panthers went into the break leading 11-1, with five different players recording goals off 38 shots.
Hoben started the second half with a goal of his own, scoring his first career goal off the face-off win.
Colin Cooke found a cutting Ippolito for another goal and moments later, Mayea made a pass to
Jack Sawyer, who scored his second of the game.
Mason Lazasz,
Isiah Moran-Weekes,
Nick Rizzo, and
Grant Ammann all also added goals for the Panthers, making it a total of 11 players contributing goals in the big win.
The Panthers went 21-for-23 on the clear and outshot the Titans 71 to 27.
Parker Green made ten saves and High Point went 68% at the faceoff X. HPU broke the previous shot record (62), firing off 71 shots on the day.
Up Next: High Point travels to VMI next Friday night to continue non-conference play. The Panthers are 8-0 all-time against the Keydets.
#GoHPU
