LEWISBURG, Pa. —  The Navy men's lacrosse team (8-6, 4-4 Patriot League) used a 3-0 run, including a pair of goals by senior Carter Ash (A / Leesburg, Va.), over the final 9:25 to earn a 14-11 victory over Bucknell (5-9, 2-6 Patriot League) Friday evening at Christy Mathewson Stadium in Lewisburg, Pa.

"I told Rob Camposa in the fourth quarter that we were going to need a senior to make a play," said sixth-year Navy head coach Joe Amplo. "Kenny (Broschart) called a great play out of the timeout and it was to perfection. Carter did his job and stuck it."

The win, Navy's ninth in a row against the Bison, secured the No. 6 seed and a road game for the Mids Tuesday evening (7:30 pm) at third-seeded Lafayette in the Patriot League Tournament Quarterfinals. It will be just the second time the two programs have met in the Patriot League Tournament (2010, Navy def. Lafayette 11-9, Semifinals).

Navy lit up the scoreboard in the opening period, as the Mids scored 7 first-quarter goals, including 4 by Henry Tolker (Sr / A / Catonsville, Md.) en route to a 7-3 lead after the first 15 minutes of action.

The game slowed down in the second quarter, as Bucknell managed to pull within two (7-5) on back-to-back goals by Peter Grandolfo (So / M) and leading scorer Michael Meyer (Jr / A). Navy, though, would take an 8-5 lead into the locker room after Jack Flaherty (Jr / M / Massapequa, N.Y.) charged his way in from the left elbow for his lone goal of the game.

"The game in the first quarter was a little crazy and we expected that. When it got crazy in the second quarter, we just didn't hit our shots," said sixth-year Navy head coach Joe Amplo. "We had some poles miss some shots, Graham Parker gets checked from behind in transition and honestly, we were kind of sloppy in those great plays that we hit on to get us to 7. Their goalkeeper made some great saves, as well.

The Mids opened the second half on a 3-1 run, giving them their largest lead of the game at 11-6. Paul Garza (Jr / M / Frederick, Md.) scored the first goal just over 2 minutes into the third frame, cutting his way in from around the left side of the crease, before Mac Haley (Jr / A / Shady Side, Md.) sent his pass across to field to Jack Nichtern (Jr / M / Massapequa Park, N.Y.) who punched in the goal with just 5 seconds remaining on the shot clock. That assist extended Haley's consecutive games with a point to 13 in a row. Haley was on the receiving end of a terrific pass from Tolker and Haley scored his first goal of the evening to put the Mids up by 5 with 4:03 remaining in the quarter.

Bucknell began cutting into Navy's lead by scoring the final 3 goals of the third quarter, including a spectacular goal by Grandolfo as time expired. Navy goalkeeper Dan Daly (Jr / GK / Wayne, N.J.) made the initial stop on the Anthony Panetti (Fr / A) shot, but the ball bounced right into the stick of Grandolfo who put the shot past Daly to get the Bison to within 2 (11-9).

Bucknell scored 2 quick goals to knot the game for the first time at 11 apiece with 11 minutes to go in the contest.

Navy, though, grabbed the momentum back just minutes later when rookie Jack Ponzio (Fr / M / Ronkonkoma, N.Y.) made an incredible play to stop an errant pass from sailing out of bounds on the Bucknell sideline. He batted the ball back in bounds and Haley managed to come up with the ball in his stick. He made his way behind the goal and found Ash to score the go-ahead goal at the 9:25 mark to give the Mids the lead for good. Ash would go on to score an insurance goal off a Ponzio assist at 6:13, while Haley sealed the win by targeting his second goal with 2:29 to go in the contest.

Tolker finished the game with a team-high 5 points on 4 goals and an assist. While it was Tolker's first hat trick of the 2025 campaign, it marked the 15th of his college career. Meanwhile, he jumped from 9th into 6th on Navy's career goals leader board with 97. He needs just 3 more to become only the sixth player in school history to score 100-career goals.

Ash recorded his fourth hat trick of the season with his 4-goal performance and now leads the team with 23 goals on the year.

Haley finished with 2 goals and 2 assists and in doing so became the 13th different Navy player since 2000 to reach the 40-point milestone and the third during the Joe Amplo era. He stands atop the Mids' scoring leader board with 40 points on 21 goals and 19 assists. Additionally, he is now just 14 points shy of joining Navy's 100-point club for his career.

Ponzio also had a productive night with a goal and a career-best 3 assists. He became the second Navy freshman (William Goers / A / Chester, Md.) this season to reach 30 points. It's just the third time in program history that a pair of freshmen have scored 30 points in the same season (Paul Basile and Tom Hanzsche with 37 points each in 1986 and Tucker Hull and Sam Jones with 38 points each in 2011). Ponzio stands second on the team in scoring with 31 points on 18 goals and 13 assists.

Defensively, Navy forced Bucknell, ranked seventh nationally in fewest turnovers per game (14.08), into 23 turnovers on the evening. The Mids were credited with 14 caused turnovers, including 3 by All-Patriot League defenseman AJ Marsh (So / Reisterstown, Md.) and 2 each by Bobby Kittelberger (Sr / D / Wantagh, N.Y.), Graham Parker (So / SSDM / Owings, Md.) and Sean Gallagher (Jr / LSM / Garnet Valley, Pa.).

Navy faceoff specialists Zach Hayashi (So / North Potomac, Md.) and Colin Shadowens (Jr / Severna Park, Md.) paired up to win 17 of the 28 draws in the contest. Behind his efforts, Hayashi moved up to fourth on the Mids' all-time career faceoff wins leader board past Logan West (266 / 2009-12). Hayashi has 273 wins in his two seasons at Navy.

The Bison were led by Grandolfo's 4-goal performance while Davis, the program's all-time scoring leader, finished with 2 goals. Goalkeeper Luke Renaud made 12 saves while yielding all 14 goals to the Mids.

With eight of the nine teams in action on Friday evening, the Patriot League Tournament seeding came down to the final contest of the night. Army defeated Loyola 18-6 in the first game of the day, before Boston U. edged Colgate 14-12. Navy and Lafayette claimed wins nearly simultaneously, the Mids defeated the Bison 14-11 and the Leopards defeated their rivals the Lehigh Mountain Hawks 12-7.

Army finished atop the standings with a 7-1 record, earning the No. 1 seed, while Boston U. finished as the No. 2 seed with a 6-2 record. Lafayette grabbed the No. 3 seed with a 5-3 record, while Lehigh, Colgate and Navy all finished 4-4. By way of tie-breakers, Lehigh (wins over Colgate and Navy) earned the No. 4 seed and will play host to Colgate on Tuesday evening. Colgate is seeded No. 5 due to its head-to-head victory over Navy. 

Tuesday's game between Navy and Lafayette will be streamed on ESPN+ and carried live on 1430 AM WNAV with Joe Miller on the call.

Patriot League Men's Lacrosse Championship Schedule
Quarterfinal Round - Tuesday, April 29 | Hosted by higher seed
7:00 pm | No. 5 Colgate at No. 4 Lehigh | ESPN+
7:30 pm | No. 6 Navy at No. 3 Lafayette | ESPN+
 
Semifinal Round - Friday, May 2 | Hosted by No. 1 Seed
Lowest-remaining seed at No. 1 Army | CBS Sports Network at 4 pm
Highest-remaining seed vs. No. 2 Boston U. | CBS Sports Network at 7 pm

Championship Game - Sunday, May 4 | Hosted by No. 1 Army
Lowest-remaining seed vs. Highest-remaining seed | Noon | CBS Sports Network at 11:30 am

Patriot League standings
1. Army: 7-1 / 12-1
2. Boston U.: 6-2 / 10-4
3. Lafayette: 5-3 / 9-5
4. Lehigh: 4-4 / 5-9
5. Colgate: 4-4 / 7-7
6. Navy: 4-4 / 8-6
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7. Loyola: 3-5 / 3-11
8. Bucknell: 2-6 / 5-9
9. Holy Cross: 1-7 / 3-12

### Go Navy ###