High Point, N.C. – The High Point University men's lacrosse team opened the season with a thrilling game against the Mercer Bears. Having a strong first half, HPU took the 14-7 win in the home opener.
Brayden Mayea put on quite the show in the first half, registering four goals and an assist to lead the team with five points.
"I thought our guys played hard," Head Coach
Jon Torpey said. "We came out and went down 2-0 and the guys didn't flinch. Mercer is a very well coached team and I have a very good relationship with their head coach, we coached together at Dartmouth and he's doing a very good job with that program. Credit to those guys for not giving up after going down 11-3 at half time. Overall good effort and good win to start the season."
Site: Vert Stadium
Score: High Point, Mercer
Records: High Point (1-0), Mercer (0-1)
After a slow start in the first quarter, the Panthers got the ball rolling with four straight goals in the last two minutes. With a team effort,
Nick Murphy initiated the first goal, followed by goals from
Nick Rizzo, Mayea and
Jackson Clay. Winning the faceoffs after each goal,
Collin Hoben played a big role in creating the offense, leading to the 4-2 lead in the first quarter.
"I think we had some success in the face-off areas," Coach Torpey added, "and we were able to get a lot of possessions. We got good looks early, but their goalie had 16 saves which is pretty hard to do at this level and I thought he played pretty well. I thought we did a good job of having the ball on our offensive field which gave us a lot of momentum and a good stretch for our defense in the third quarter."
Once Mayea got hot, it was hard for Mercer to stop him. Scoring his fourth goal at the seven-minute mark in the second quarter, the Panthers extended on a 9-2 lead.
"Obviously we needed a little bit of fire under the team," Mayea stated. "We wanted to get the guys going on the sideline and get the moral up, so after hitting those goals I think we were feeling pretty good and just grooving after that."
Rounding out the first half,
Matt Lutzel and
Jack Sawyer knocked in back-to-back goals to make it 11-3 before going in at the break.
The third quarter witnessed a lull in goals from the Panthers. Mercer knocked in the teams fourth goal of the game in the first 30 seconds of the new half.
After almost 15 minutes with no goals scored, High Point added another point to the board with a goal from
Tommy Meehan.
The Bears kept battling, scoring three quick goals in the fourth quarter to make it 12-7, but the Panthers kept pushing and clicked in two more goals before the final horn to take the first game of the season, 14-7.
Next Up:
High Point hosts Duke University on Saturday, February 10 Vert Stadium at 2:00 p.m.
#GoHPU
