ANNAPOLIS, Md. —  Attackman Christian Daniel (So / Owings, Md.) scored a career-high eight points, while netminder Ryan Kern (Jr / Middletown, Del.) matched his personal best with 18 saves to lead the Navy men's lacrosse team (6-7, 4-4 Patriot League) to a 13-12 victory over 16th-ranked Boston University (10-5, 5-3 Patriot League) Friday evening at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium in what would be the Mids' season finale.

"It was a heck of a win by my team tonight," said eighth-year Navy head coach Rick Sowell. "That was a good team we beat, one of the hottest teams in the country right now. I think it was about executing our game plan.

"We played well defensively until that final few minutes there, but they have a special player in Chris Gray who is hard to handle and we did a good job matching up. On the other end, we were able to score some goals."

An evenly-matched game over the first two quarters saw neither team push out to more than a two-goal lead. The Mids owned a 3-2 advantage after the first quarter, while BU scored the first three goals of the second before the two teams traded goals over the final 8:30.

While Kern made countless point-blank saves throughout the game, it was Daniel who provided the spark in the third quarter to give the Mids the lead for good.

Trailing 7-6 to open the second half, the Mids knotted the game for the fourth time when co-captain Ryan Wade (Sr / Coronado, Calif.) found Daniel for hard sidearm shot from the right elbow at the 12:14 mark.

Four minutes later, Navy took its first lead since the opening quarter (3-2) when Daniel ran to the back of the cage following a restart and spotted attackman Jack Sweeney (Glenelg, Md.) anchored on the crease for his second goal of the game.

The Mids closed out their 3-0 run and opened up a 9-7 lead when Daniel sent his shot over the right shoulder of BU keeper Joe McSorley.

The Terriers briefly interupted the Mids' run when attackman Chris Gray found rookie Matt Hillburn who raced around the left side of the goal and targeted his shot to get BU to within one (9-8) with 3:52 to go in the period.

Navy quickly answered with one of the most spectacular plays of the evening. Wade found Daniel open just in front of the crease, but Daniel was forced to toss a back-handed shot towards the goal as he was falling away from the cage. The goal was Daniel's fifth of the game.

The Mids closed out the third when co-captain Greyson Torain (Sr / Glen Burnie, Md.) sent a pass across the field to rookie Nick Cole (Fr / Ashburn, Va.) who patiently used a few head fakes to thread his shot past McSorley to give Navy an 11-8 lead.

BU opened the fourth quarter with a highlight reel goal by Gray, whose back-handed shot made its way past Kern to draw the Terriers back to within two.

Navy, though, would have nothing of it, as Daniel put his play-making skills on display and fed his senior co-captains (Torain and Wade) for back-to-back goals at the 11:13 and 6:54 marks to give the Mids their largest lead of the game at 13-9.

The Mids had a handful of opportunities late in the game to score on an open net, but credit BU for foiling the chances for Navy to put the game out of reach.

The Terriers instead put together a three-goal run over the final two-plus minutes of the contest with senior James Burr scoring two of the three goals, including an unassisted shot that got BU to within one with 31.1 seconds remaining.

Not only did BU draw to within a goal, Navy was flagged for unnecessary roughness and would play the remainder of regulation a man down.

The Terriers' Kevin Snyder won the ensuing faceoff and head coach Ryan Polley called timeout to set up the final play. Navy's defense, which played a phenomenal game against one of the best offensive units in the country, pushed out on the Terriers and forced Burr to toss an errant pass that flew over the head of his teammate with just seven seconds left and sealed the win for the Mids.

Daniel became the second Navy player this season to reach 40 points (Ryan Wade) behind his eight-point performance (5G, 3A). He is the first Navy player to score eight points in a game since Dave Little scored nine goals on nine shots against Lehigh on March 25, 2017. Meanwhile, Cole (2G, 2A), Torain (1G, 3A) and Wade (2G, 2A) all finished the game with four points. Wade, who extended his point-scoring streak to 37 consecutive games and assist streak to 34 in a row, is now only the second midfielder in school history to score 20 goals and deal out 20 assists in a single season (20G, 28A), joining 1986 MacLaughlin Award winner Glen Miles (23G, 30A in 1986).

Kern paced the defense with his 18 stops en route to becoming just the 10th goalkeeper in school history to reach the 400-save milestone. He stands 10th on the all-time saves list with 416 saves. Meanwhile, he made 167 saves this season which is tied for the 15th most in program history. He joins RJ Wickam (#6 with 188 in 2010) and John Connors (#20 with 154 in 2016) as the only three goalkeepers in the last 20 years to ranked among the Mids' top-20 single-season saves leader board.

"We don't wn this game if No. 24 doesn't have the game he had," said Sowell.  "He bailed us out a number of times tonight. He was unbelievable tonight."

BU was led by Gray's five-point (2G, 3A) evening, while Burr scored four goals off 17 shots and Homire posted four points (3G, 1A). McSorley closed out the game with 14 saves.

The evening, however, ended on a bittersweet note for the Mids. While the team was able to send out its 10 senior members - Mike Allen, Ian Burgoyne, Luke King, Sam Kopf, Mike Loscalzo, Noah Seely, Drew Smiley, Torain, Wade and Patrick Walsh - with a win on Senior Night, it turned out it was also the final game of their careers. The Mids finished conference play with a 4-4 record and in a three-way tie for fifth with Holy Cross and Bucknell. Navy, though, finished as the No. 7 seed and out of the league tournament because both Holy Cross and Bucknell defeated second-seeded Lehigh during the regular season.

### Go Navy ###