The Beloit College men's lacrosse team weathered a second half surge by Monmouth College but held on to top the Scots 12-9 at Strong Stadium Wednesday evening.
Michael Boyland led the Buccaneers offensively tallying seven goals in the win, a mark tied for the second-most in program history.
The Beloit offense took their time to find their rhythm but exploded for four goals in the final six minutes of the first quarter sparked by Boyland's first goal at the 5:59 mark.
Ezra Rogers notched the assist on the man-up score. Less than 50 seconds later
Adam Heckman found
Steven Soli who rifled a shot passed the Scots keeper to make it 2-0.
Andrei Prikhodko got into the scoring column with an unassisted goal with 4:05 on the scoreboard before Boyland struck again, this time off a pass from
Mark Gannon, with less than two minutes in the quarter to make it 4-0 Beloit.
Rogers, Heckman and Boyland all registered goals in the second quarter with Boyland and Heckman adding assists before the Scots erased the zero on the scoreboard. Monmouth's first goal was the final of the second quarter to send the teams into intermission with the Bucs leading 7-1.
Boyland scored three of the first four goals of the third quarter writing his name into the scoring summary at 14:39, 13:59 and 7:01, the latter giving Beloit a 10-2 advantage. From that point, Monmouth rattled off four straight to pull to within four, 10-6, before Boyland halted the spurt with an unassisted score with 6:45 remaining in the contest.
The Scots ended the game on a 3-1 run, with Boyland finding Gannon for the goal to wrap up the scoring for Beloit at the 3:17 mark, for the 12-9 final.
Beloit outshot Monmouth 46-38 and were more efficient on man-advantage opportunities at 3-7 compared to the Scots' 0-5.
Boyland's seven goals and nine points led all players.
Luke Thomson and
Tobin Greenwald were active for the Beloit defense combining for 10 groundballs and six caused turnovers.
The Bucs will host Augustana College Saturday at 4:30 p.m. at Strong Stadium.
