DENVER – Junior Eric Law (Centennial, Colo.) led the University of Denver men’s lacrosse team with four goals and one assist as the Pioneers (1-1) claimed a 17-5 victory over Michigan (0-3) in the second game of the 12th Annual DU Face-Off Classic in front of a sell-out crowd of 2,191 at Peter Barton Lacrosse Stadium on Saturday. The win marks the 300th victory for head coach Bill Tierney, who becomes the fifth head coach to win 300 wins.
“We still are not where we want to be and we need to work on getting in sync, but this was a great win for us,” said head coach Bill Tierney. “It was great to look up in the stands and see our fans coming out here. It was a great atmosphere.”
Seniors Mark Matthews (Oshawa, Ontario) and Alex Demopoulos (Canton, Conn.) each added three goals and two assists and sophomore Jeremy Noble (Orangeville, Ontario) tallied three points for Denver. Junior Cameron Flint (Georgetown, Ontario) and seniors Patrick Rogers (Portland, Ore.) and Henry Miketa (Fort Collins, Colo.) had two points each in the win.
Junior Chase Carraro (Louisville, Ky.) won 12-of-15 of his face-offs and junior Chase Calkin (Englewood, Colo.) was 7-of-10 on his face-off opportunities. Freshman Carson Cannon (Stillwater, Minn.) and junior Steve Marchetto (Chatham, N.J.) caused two turnovers apiece to lead the Pioneers. Senior Troy Orzech (Franktown, Colo.) made two saves for the Crimson and Gold.
The Pioneers had a 43-13 shot advantage and a 43-23 upper hand in ground balls. Denver won 19-of-26 face-offs and was successful on 10-of-13 clear opportunities compared to Michigan, which was 11-of-18. DU was successful on 2-of-3 extra-man chances and limited its turnovers to 18, compared to the Wolverines’ 25. Doug Bryant led Michigan with two goals. Dylan Westerhold made 10 saves in the loss.
Miketa and Law scored the first two goals of the contest, giving DU an early 2-0 lead. Michigan’s Thomas Paras made it a 2-1 game before the Pioneers came back with three unanswered goals from Law, Demopoulos and Flint. Denver outshot Michigan 8-3 in the quarter and led 5-1 after the first 15 minutes.
Law netted his third goal of the half to begin the second quarter before the Wolverines answered with a goal from Bryant. Matthews got in on the action to give Denver a 7-2 lead. The Wolverines got a goal from Alex Vasileff, but the Pioneers regained the momentum with a man-up goal from Matthews with 3:16 to play. Noble scored the last goal of the half with seven seconds to play and the Pioneers led 9-3 at intermission.
Demopoulos and Rogers scored to open the second half, giving Denver an 11-3 lead. Michigan got another goal from Bryant, but the Crimson and Gold quelled any sort of Wolverine rally with four-straight goals from Matthews, Law, junior Kyle Hercher (Littleton, Colo.) and Demopoulos. Jeff Chu scored for Michigan to end the third, but the Pioneers led 15-5 after three quarters.
Denver freshmen Eric Adamson (Anaheim Hills, Calif.) and Sean Cannizzaro (Cazenovia, N.Y.) scored the only goals of the final quarter, while sophomore Erik Carter (Tucson, Ariz.) saw time in net recording one ground ball.
Robert Morris defeated Air Force 17-14 in the first game of the DU Face-Off Classic. Action continues tomorrow as Michigan takes on Air Force at 11 a.m. MT, followed by the Pioneers game against Robert Morris at 1:30 p.m. MT. Sunday afternoon’s game marks the first time Denver takes on the Colonials.