Marquette Men’s Lacrosse was down three goals to Mercer at two different points in their recent game, and yet the Golden Eagles still managed to pull off the comeback, and win 14-11, on the road. The comeback was made possible by Marquette’s defense, which really stepped up in the second half. At one point, the Golden Eagle defense held Mercer scoreless for 21 minutes of play.
Bryan Badolato led the way for Marquette offensively, notching five goals in the second half (he also had 2 assists in the game). Conor Gately finished with two goals, and seven total points, for Marquette. Yup, he had an impressive 5 assists. Tyler Melnyk had 2 goals and 3 assists, and JJ Sagl made 7 saves in goal for the win.
Mercer was led by Chris Baxa who notched five goals and 2 assists, to equal Badolato’s effort on the other side. Zach Ward had a strong showing as well, notching 4 goals and adding a helper. Eoin Collins proved successful scoring two goals on 4 shots, while adding a helper of his own. Mike Nugent made 11 big saves in the loss, and he needed to be good if Mercer was to stay in the game, as Marquette only sent 10 of its 35 shots off cage.
Marquette held an edge in GBs (39-32), and had seven less turnovers than Mercer (19-12). Mercer dominated one face offs (20-9), and both teams were excellent on their clearing attempts. Mercer went 2-4 on man up, while Marquette (via Connor Bernal) scored on their only man up chance on the day.
Marquette (2-2) plays next at St. Joseph’s on March 16th. Mercer (3-3) visits a tough Bellarmine squad, which currently sits at 5-1