BETHLEHEM, Pa. --- Moravian College is continuing its look back at its 2017-18 athletic campaign. The next event in the Top 10 Exciting Games from the past year selected by the athletic administration is our No. 6 highlight – the men's lacrosse team rallying from a three-goal deficit to defeat The Catholic University of America, 5-4, in the final seconds.
The Greyhounds, who finished the year at 7-7 overall and with the first two Landmark Conference wins in program history, welcomed the Cardinals to John Makuvek Field on Saturday, April 21, the Hounds' final home weekend match of the season.
Catholic would get onto the scoreboard on a man-up goal with 6:10 left in the first quarter, and the Cardinals scored once more to lead 2-0 after 15 minutes of action and again roughly four minutes into the second quarter to build a 3-0 advantage.
Junior attack James Carroll tallied Moravian's first goal of the match with 7:40 before the intermission off of a feed from junior attack Mark Laratta. The Blue and Grey would strike again just 18 seconds before halftime when sophomore attack Cade Siddron took a pass from Laratta and fired it into the net.
The Greyhounds netted the only goal of the third quarter when Laratta scored on an unassisted goal with 5:52 to play in the quarter to tie the contest at 3-3.
Catholic scored about five minutes into the fourth quarter to move back in front, 4-3. The match remained that way for nearly eight and a half minutes before Moravian junior midfielder Austin Adams knotted the score again with an unassisted goal with 1:44 left.
The Cardinals won the ensuing face-off. They would get a shot blocked before a second shot was saved by Greyhounds' junior goalie Kurt Dick (Hatboro, Pa./Horsham HS), who finished with a total of 15 saves. After a quick clear and timeout, Moravian ran a play to get Laratta free on the left side of the net where he fired in the game-winning goal with 7.1 seconds to play.
The Greyhounds' defense of juniors John Polich, Brian Biase, John Kerrison and Anthony Pontone, sophomore Jimmy Schicke and freshman Tanner Leslie helped hold Catholic well below its 9.5 goals per game average entering the match.
"Both teams needed to win to keep their playoff hopes alive," noted Head Coach Dave Carty recalling the afternoon. "Moravian had never beaten Catholic in lacrosse. We had dropped last year's game 13-7 and it really wasn't a close game. We knew coming into the game that we had to come up big defensively. We felt like we were finally playing good lacrosse after the win against Drew. With 27 seconds left, Kurt made a great save and we knew we would have the final shot. We called a timeout and set up Mark for the final dodge, he split left when he saw them over playing him inside and hit a great shot from about eight yards. It was a great win for the program, probably the best since we've been back."
Read the original game story at http://moraviansports.com/sports/mlax/2017-18/releases/20180421sm2c3u with links to stats, photos and video.
The number five highlight in the Top 10 Exciting Games of 2017-18 will be released on Wednesday, June 20.
