A seven-goal third quarter enabled the Armory to hand the Hawkeyes their first loss of the season in the Upstate College Box Lacrosse League with a 15-10 final on Wednesday night at Segar & Sciortino Field at The Blue Cross Arena.
Forward Kaleb Benedict (3+3) paced the Armory to their third win of the season and second over the Hawkeyes as both he and fellow forward Casey McDermott (3+1), who entered the contest leading all Armory scorers in points, recorded hat tricks. Forwards Joey Pezzimenti (2+0), Rioux Johnson (2+3) and Luke Pilcher (2+4) all netted two-goal performances. Additionally, forwards Lars Stout (1+1), Harrison Cross (1+0) and Camden Hay (1+4) all scored while forward Jeremy Jacob (0+2) registered two assists.
Armory’s goaltender William Dempsey improved to 3-1 on the campaign as he made 37 saves in the win.
In his first game of the summer, forward Kolton Marquis (4+2) had a game-high four goals to go with a pair of assists while forward Mason Homer (0+5) registered five helpers in the defeat. Forwards Zachary Terry (2+0), Trevor Hill (2+0) and Gavin Hill (2+3) collected a two-goal outing while forwards Matt Heyden (0+1), Rocco Santillo (0+1) and Hunter Goodman (0+1), and defenseman Connor Thornton (0+1) all earned an assist.
After entering the matchup with a 2-1 record, goaltender Kyle Meagher stopped 39 of the 54 shots he faced but suffered the loss.
In the first quarter, both teams combined for just three goals. The Armory opened the scoring before the Hawkeyes closed out the frame with back-to-back goals to push the score 2-1 in their favor, including the first of four from Marquis.
Heading into the second stanza behind by one, the Armory began their comeback 1:16 into the quarter with a pair of tallies to find their first lead of the game.
The Hawkeyes were quick to take their lead back, though, and over a span of three minutes, they upped the score to 5-3 with three-straight goals with two more coming from Marquis in that timeframe.
WATCH: GAME HIGHLIGHTS
Not backing down after the Hawkeyes’ second lead of the contest, the Armory fired in two more goals to set the score at five apiece before heading into the half and taking the game by storm.
With the Armory ending the first half with two-straight markers, they came out firing on all cylinders coming into the third quarter with four more to take their second and final lead of the contest.
Over a five-minute span, the Armory hammered in four goals to take a 9-5 advantage and rack up their first special teams’ markers of the night. Pezzimenti kicked off the quarter for the Armory with a shorthanded goal 1:25 in and delivered his second of the night just 1:07 later.
In the third quarter, the Hawkeyes did strike twice with Marquis rounding out his scoring for the night with his first power-play marker of the contest. However, with less than three minutes to go in the third frame, the Armory lit the lamp three more times to head into the final frame ahead 12-7.
The final stanza was more of a back-and-forth affair with both teams finding the back of the net on multiple occasions.
As the Armory kept their lead for the rest of the contest, they scored three more times in the fourth while the Hawkeyes tried to chip away at the score with two more goals as the game ended 15-10 in the Armory’s favor.
The Upstate College Box Lacrosse League’s next game is slated for Wednesday, July 7 at 7 p.m. as the Hawkeyes and Buffaloes face-off at Segar & Sciortino Field at The Blue Cross Arena.