HAVERFORD, Pa. – The Haverford College men's lacrosse team defeated visiting McDaniel College, 9-6, in Centennial Conference action Saturday afternoon at Swan Field, shutting down the Green Terror's top two scoring threats and limiting the visitors to just five second-half shots.
Zack Cohen, Myles Monaghan and Phillip Valliant each scored twice for Haverford (8-5, 4-3 CC) in a win that leap-frogs McDaniel (7-6, 4-3 CC) in the league standings, placing the Fords in third place with the tie-breaker edge over nearly every team behind them in the standings.
The Fords got on the board first Saturday with an unassisted score by Andrew Kim who wrapped around the right side of the goal from behind and found the back of the net behind starting McDaniel goalie Ty Wittelsberger.
McDaniel answered back with a pair of first period goals to take the lead briefly but back-to-back goals from Max Hjelm and Valliant pushed Haverford in front again.
Each team would score once more in the opening frame but the Fords took control of the game in the second period.
Monaghan's goal late in the first proved to be the beginning of a four-goal run by the Fords. Travis Gregory, Cohen and Monaghan, again, scored in the second to help grow the lead to 7-3. McDaniel broke the string late in the period but the home team took a 7-4 advantage into halftime.
Playing with that three-goal lead, Haverford's defense was able to clamp down even harder on the Green Terror and allowed just one shot in the third and only four more in the fourth. McDaniels' DJ Rickels and Gibbs Preston came into the game scoring a combined 57 goals but the pair were held scoreless and generated only six of their team's 20 shots.
Defender Dillon Hamill had five caused turnovers for the Fords while David Lawrence picked up two. Matt Dooley, along with nine other seniors playing a final time at Swan, added one caused turnover but had several blocks of Green Terror shots as part of the swarming defense that held the visitor's leading scoring tandem without a goal.
Haverford goalie Joe Banno earned the win finishing with four first-half saves. Wittlesberger took the loss in goal for McDaniel registering three saves before giving way to Brad Motley who started the second half and closed with 10 saves.
The squad's graduating seniors — comprised of Jordan Daniels, Andrew Devlin, Dooley, Grant Firestone, Brian Fleishhacker, Alex Guy, Ian Holmes, Kim, Lawrence and Matt Starke — have accumulated 40 wins over their four-year careers and are just two victories short of tying the Class of '09's program-best total of 42.
The seniors and the rest of the Fords will get a chance to earn No. 41 next Saturday at Swarthmore College in a 3 p.m. contest that closes out the regular season.
A win at Swarthmore would clinch a playoff spot in the postseason league tournament, regardless of what happens in other Centennial contests over the final week of the season.