ANNAPOLIS, Md. —  A goal by freshman attackman Luke Breslin at the 5:26 mark in the first quarter triggered a 9-1 run by Lehigh (2-4, 1-0 Patriot League), as the Mountain Hawks went on to beat the 18th-ranked Navy men's lacrosse team (4-2, 1-1 Patriot League) 13-8 on Friday evening at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.

"We knew if we were going to win this game tonight we were going to have to play some great defense and get some stops and I felt like we just didn't do that early enough to get some momentum down on that end," said sixth-year Navy head coach Joe Amplo. "I'm really proud of our guys for fighting in the second half. They really fought their tails off. They played their hearts out. That's a huge positive.

"Lehigh is good, they've improved every game this year. They have some good offensive players that played very well tonight and we didn't have an answer for them."

The story of the game came down to possession, as Lehigh won 23 of the 25 faceoffs. Navy was without its top-two draw specialists (Zach Hayashi, Colin Shadowens) for a second-consecutive game and threw 5 different players at the Mountain Hawks' Sean Dow, including a pair of poles. Dow, however, took all 25 draws for Lehigh in the contest and went 11 for 11 in the second half to keep the ball in the hands of Lehigh's offensive players. Dow's dominance at the "x" also helped account for Lehigh's 38-11 advantage in the ground game with Dow grabbing a whopping 14 ground balls himself.

"I'm not making any excuses. I just said to the guys, in the history of our sport there have been plenty of lacrosse games where there were teams have not won a lot of faceoffs and won," added Amplo. "We didn't do the things we needed to do to win with those circumstances and that includes playing consistently good defense. I think we had 2 or 3 failed clears in the first half, some of that is fatigue, but we have to make those plays when you aren't going to get any momentum at the faceoff x. God knows we tried everything ... and everybody. That kid is very good, but we've got to get better there if we are going to compete in the short term."

To complicate matters, Lehigh used long, drawn-out possessions to wear down Navy's defense. At least two of Lehigh's goals were scored with under 6 seconds remaining on the shot clock, while the Mountain Hawks were whistled for 8 shot clock violations.

"That's their game plan," said Amplo in regards to Lehigh's long possessions. "It's hard to say we played good defense on some possessions when they scored goals, but we did. They get you so late on the shot clock that one little mistake when you're fatigued, they get a goal. But the 45 or 50 seconds prior to that, you played really good defense. When the team knows they can squeeze the clock and just wait until the end to really be aggressive, that's a confident feeling for an offense. It's a very uncomfortable feeling for a defense, just mentally. The physical part, you are moving around a lot. It's tough. It's not an excuse, it's just the way it is. Like I said, teams have been successful doing it. It's not easy and we just weren't (successful) tonight. The way we needed to play the game was close to perfect and we just couldn't get there."

Navy scored the game's opening goal when Jack Ponzio (Fr / M / Ronkonkoma, N.Y.) took a Mac Haley (Jr / A / Shady Side, Md.) pass, dropped his shoulder and fired in an 8-yard shot on extra man to give the Mids their lone lead in the game at the 9:47 mark.

Lehigh evened the score 4 minutes later when the Mids' Jacob Darrow (Sr / D / Millersville, Md.) broke the head off his stick and was forced to run off the field, while Breslin wisely attacked the goal for the first of his 5 goals in the contest. The Mountain Hawks scored the next 3 goals, including another by Breslin who beat the Navy slide with just 12.3 seconds remaining in the first quarter to push their lead to 3 (4-1).

Lehigh scored the first-two goals of the second quarter to take a 5-goal lead before Ponzio and Haley connected for a second time on extra man at the 12:36 mark.

Once again it was Breslin who would spark another 3-goal run by Lehigh, as Navy had no answer for what was a spectacular faceoff display by the Mountain Hawks.

Navy trimmed the lead to 6 just before the end of the half when William Goers (Fr / A / Chester, Md.) threw the ball up for grabs as he was falling to the ground and Haley scooped it up and found Ponzio for his first-career hat trick.

Back-to-back goals by Peter Theodoropoulos and Dakota Eierman in the early minutes of the third quarter gave Lehigh its largest lead of the game at 11-3.

Navy did not back down and battled its way back into the conversation by scoring 4-consecutive goals. Newly-announced Tewaaraton Award Watch List member AJ Marsh (So / D / Reisterstown, Md.) helped execute the transition game to perfection, as he drew the Lehigh defense in and found Goers all alone in front of the goal at 8:02 in the third quarter. Two minutes later Goers spotted Ponzio who found the back of the net from 12 yards out. Navy closed out the frame on a Paul Garza (Jr / M / Frederick, Md.) goal off Haley's fourth assist in the game to close to within 5 (11-6).

The Mids got to within four (11-7) just 43 seconds into the final quarter when Ponzio ripped his fifth goal of the game off an assist from Garza.

Navy, however, would get no closer as Eierman tacked on a pair of goals to Lehigh's lead before Navy's Evan Conway (Sr / M / Charleston, S.C.) scored the final goal in a 13-8 Mountain Hawks victory.

Ponzio finished the game with a career-high 6 points on 5 goals and an assist. It's the third time in the last 4 games a Navy player has produced 6 points and the second time by a rookie (William Goers / 4G, 2A vs. Towson). The 5 goals are the most by a Navy player since Dane Swanson scored 5 at Boston U. last March.

Meanwhile, Haley finished with a career-high 4 assists, the most by a Navy player since Xavier Arline's 4 assists at Hofstra in 2023.

Dan Daly (Jr / GK / Wayne, N.J.) finished the game with 9 saves for the Mids and moved into 16th on Navy's all-time career saves list with 275. He is now 25 shy of becoming just the 16th player to reach 300 for their career. Meanwhile Navy's defense recorded 4 caused turnovers including 2 by Darrow.

Breslin and Eierman, the team's top two scorers on the year, finished the game with 3 and 5 goals, respectively, while Theodoropoulos added a pair.

First-year starting goalkeeper Kasey Heath made 10 stops, while All-Patriot League defenseman Richard Checo posted a pair of caused turnovers.

Navy plays host to longtime rival Johns Hopkins next Saturday in what will mark the 94th game between the two programs. Faceoff is slated for 7:00 pm at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium with Joe Miller calling the action on ESPN+ and 1430 AM / 99.9 FM WNAV.

Single-game tickets may be purchased by stopping by the Navy Ticket Office at Ricketts Hall, by calling 1-800-US4-NAVY, via the internet at www.navysports.com or at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium on game day. Ticket prices for home games are $10 for adults and $5 for kids 12 and under, while groups of 20 or more will be offered a discounted ticket (in advance only, contact Jordan Albright at 410-293-8791 / grouptickets@usna.edu). Additionally there is a $10 charge (credit card only) to park at Navy-Marine Corps Memorial Stadium for all games.

### Go Navy ###