April 28, 2006
Box Score
HAMILTON, N.Y. -- The eighth-ranked Navy lacrosse team used a suffocating defense and a balanced offense, cruising to a 9-2 victory in the Patriot League Tournament semifinals on a chilly Friday night at Colgate's Tyler's Field. The Mids, now 10-3 on the season, will battle fourth-seeded Army (8-5) on Sunday at noon in Hamilton, N.Y. Army defeated top-seeded Colgate, 10-8, in the tournament opener on Friday. The game will be televised nationally on CSTV, and broadcast on WNAV (1430 AM).
Two storylines took center stage for the Mids on Friday night at Tyler's Field, the first being Navy senior attack Jon Birsner (Levittown, N.Y.). Birsner became just the fourth player in school history, and just the fifth in Patriot League history, to surpass the 100-career assist barrier with three helpers on the evening. Birsner dished out his 100th career helper on a Chris Barnard (Rochester, N.Y.) tally in the fourth quarter, then added one more later in the contest to finish the game with 101 career assists.
"I knew I was close to 100 assists, but I never really played for points," said Birsner. "My role is to get the offense together and organized and find guys that can score goals. I thought they might play me a little different tonight, but we just took what they gave us and capitalized on our chances. The guys did a great job finishing tonight."
In two games against Lehigh this year, Birsner scored 10 points (3 g, 7 a).
Meanwhile, the Navy defense also had an outstanding performance, spearheaded by the work of the close defense. The grouping of Jordan DiNola (Ballston Lake, N.Y.), Brendan Teague (Annapolis, Md.) and Andrew Dow (Hauppauge, N.Y.) led a Navy unit that held Lehigh without a shot for the first 20:04 of the second half and just 19 shots for the game. During the decisive third quarter in which Navy stretched its 4-1 halftime lead to a 6-1 margin, Navy held Lehigh without a shot and had eight ground balls to the Mountain Hawks' four.
Spanning the first to fourth quarters, Navy's defense held Lehigh scoreless from 5:12 left in the first quarter to 3:27 left in the game, a span of 46:45.
"The defense was incredible tonight," said Birsner. "As a team, we hadn't really played a great second half all year, and I thought we did tonight. The defense really set the tone in the third quarter and their effort really picked up our team. It gave us the momentum we needed tonight."
The Mids started slow and actually trailed early in the game. Lehigh's Michael Zurfluh gave Lehigh a 1-0 lead with 5:12 to play in the first period. However, Navy answered just seven seconds later to knot the score at 1-1. William Wallace (Bloomfield Village, Mich.) won the ensuing face-off, flipped a pass to Ian Dingman (Deferiet, N.Y.), who then found Birsner alone in front of the net for his 15th goal of the season at the 5:05 mark.
Birsner's goal was the first of three in a span of 2:35 to give Navy a 3-1 lead after the first quarter. Billy Looney (Silver Spring, Md.) and Dingman scored goals in the frame for the Mids. The duo was coming off a combined 1-of-30 performance against Johns Hopkins, but finished Friday 4-of-12.
Navy pushed the lead to 4-1 at halftime on Ward Hackett's (Oxford, Md.) first career goal with 10:20 to play in the second quarter. Hackett, a short-stick defensive midfielder, scored off an assist from Nick Mirabito (Binghamton, N.Y.), who scored in his 29th straight game. Hackett became the 18th different Mid to find the back of the net this season.
Dingman and Mirabito scored goals late in the third quarter to push the Navy margin to 6-1, and the Mids then outscored Lehigh, 3-1, in the final stanza for the 9-2 victory. Mirabito, Barnard and Dingman all scored goals for Navy in the stanza.
Dingman (3 g, 1 a) and Birsner (1 g, 3 a) each scored four points, while Mirabito added three (2 g, 1 a). Looney, Hackett, Barnard each added a goal, while freshman Bruce Nechanicky (Montgomery Village, Md.) added an assist.
Dingman's hat trick was seventh of the season and 15th of his career. Birsner, meanwhile, has had at least two assists in 29-of-57 career games.
Navy dominated the game statistically, outshooting Lehigh, 31-19, picking up 24 ground balls to Lehigh's 14 and winning 11-of-15 face-offs. Wallace, who came into the game winning .567 percent of his draws, won 8-of-11 against a team that was ranked 16th in the country in face-off win percentage. Matt Russell (Madison, Conn.) also made six saves in the cage, including several of spectacular variety.
Army and Navy will now meet for the second time in two weeks and for the Patriot League Tournament title for the second straight year on Sunday. Birsner is ready for the challenge.
"Against Army, nothing matters. You can throw out all the stats and records, because the game is all about heart and playing hard," said Birsner. "We are excited about going toe to toe with them and it will be another great game between us.
"We always try to play the game like it will be your last game," added Birsner. "As a senior, you really sense that, and there is more urgency. We know it could be the last game we ever play, so we are going to give it all we got on Sunday".
The winner will receive an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, which begins May 13 or 14 at campus sites around the country.
# GO NAVY #
