MARIETTA, Ohio – The Marietta College men's lacrosse team earned a victory in their conference opener with a 14-5 win over Heidelberg University on Saturday (Mar 25) afternoon. With the win the Pioneers improve to 3-4 overall and 1-0 in Ohio Athletic Conference play, and with the loss the Student Princes fall to 3-4 overall and 0-1 in the OAC.
"A great start to OAC play," said Marietta Head Men's lacrosse coach
Ben Suchomma. "The guys executed the game plan very well today."
Marietta opened the scoring less than three minutes into the game, when
Chase Mullen (Cabot, Pa./Knoch) found the net. A little over two minutes, Mullen sent a great pass to
Thomas Zerman (Westerville, Ohio/Westerville South) and Zerman rifled it past the Heidelberg goalie to give the Pioneers a two-goal lead. The two teams battled back and forth until the 4:23 mark when Jacob Brickman opening the scoring for Heidelberg and cutting the lead in half. Colton answered quickly with a score and the Pioneers entered the second quarter ahead, 3-1.
Marietta shut down the Student Princes and kept them off the board in the second quarter, all the while keeping up the attack of their own.
Nate Neal (Bethel Park, Pa./Bethel Park) scored from a great pass from
Kyle Fleshman (Davidsonville, Md./South River) at the 7:32 mark and Franklin added a score in the closing seconds of the period to give the Pioneers a 5-1 lead at the intermission.
The Pioneers extended the lead in the first five minutes of the third quarter as Franklin, Neal, and Mullen added tallies. Heidelberg finally got a score back as Evans score again with 8:51 remaining in the quarter. With less than a minute, Franklin scored again. On the ensuing faceoff,
Nathan Grover (North Canton, Ohio/Hoover) picked up the groundball, flipped it over to
Logan Podgorski (Pittsburgh, Pa./Bethel Park), who would shoot and score. The Pioneers led 10-3 going into the final period. Both teams put up some late offense in the fourth period but Heidelberg could not make up the difference and the Pioneers would cruise to a 14-5 conference victory.
Ben Millard (Chagrin Falls, Ohio/Kenston) got the start and played 51 minutes in goal. He faced 30 shots, 15 of which were on goal, and made 10 saves.
Dane Barker (Cincinnati, Ohio/Summit Country Day) finished the game and faced two shots on goal, making a save.
Franklin led the Pioneers with three goals and he assisted on one other. Mullen, Neal, Fleshman, and Podgorski all tallied two goals apiece. Fleshman assisted on three Pioneer goals. Grover was 14-22 in the faceoff and picked up a team high seven groundballs. Defensively,
Zach Rush (Westerville, Ohio/Westerville Central) had a solid game with two caused turnovers and scored one of the Pioneer late goals.
Marietta will return to the field Wednesday (Mar. 29) when they welcome in Mount Union, with the game scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.
Fans can follow all of the Pioneer teams all year long at
pioneers.marietta.edu. You can also follow the Pioneers on Facebook at
facebook.com/MariettaCollege and @MariettaPioneer on Twitter and Instagram.
