The 2015 Marquette men’s lacrosse team has taught viewers an important lesson: It’s not over until the final buzzer sounds.
Despite being down four goals at the start of the fourth quarter, the Golden Eagles roared back. Graduate student attackman Jordan Greenfield capped off his impressive day with his sixth goal of the afternoon a minute into overtime, securing an 11-10 victory against Richmond for the Golden Eagles.
“Our guys have a funny way of keeping it very exciting,” coach Joe Amplo said. “Fortunately we’re lucky enough to come out on the right side again.”
Greenfield broke a program record in just his third game at Marquette with six goals against Richmond. His contributions were a huge factor in Marquette’s late comeback. Three of those goals came in the fourth quarter during Marquette’s 6-2 run. He was named the Big East Offensive Player of the Week yesterday for his efforts.
“He is such a good competitor,” Amplo said. “(I) give him a lot of credit. He was getting a lot of verbal abuse from their fans and some of their kids. He just hung in there. He could have lost his cool and lost his temper. I’m really proud of him for just staying the course and being focused on his job. At the end of the day I think he had the last laugh”
Junior attackman Conor Gately had three goals and an assist and redshirt junior midfielder Kyle Whitlow had a goal and an assist. Goalkeeper Jimmy Danaher made 11 saves in the victory.
The victory pushed Marquette up to No. 16 in the media poll and 17 in the coaches’ poll, each one spot up from last week. Both are new record-highs for the program.
Down 8-4 at the start of the third quarter, the chances the Golden Eagles would win seemed bleak. Despite the odds, the team has shown from experience such a feat could be overcome. Marquette came back from that same deficit last week against Hofstra. The team knew it could be done.
Marquette scored the first four goals of the quarter in nine minutes to tie the game up at eight. After a goal by Richmond’s sophomore midfielder Jean-Luc Chetner the Golden Eagles responded again. The Golden Eagles scored twice in the final minute, with Gatley getting the go-ahead goal with just 16 seconds remaining.
“It (shows) the strength of the unity of our kids,” Amplo said. “They really care about each other. They aren’t going to let a four-goal lead stop them.”
However, the Golden Eagles were called for a faceoff violation, allowing the Spiders one last opportunity to stay alive. Sophomore attackman J.P. Forester found fellow sophomore attackman Mitch Goldberg, who beat senior Logan Tousaw to the front of the net. Goldberg buried his fifth of the afternoon with seven seconds remaining to send the game to overtime.
“I don’t know what emotion I felt because I was just trying to stay calm and grounded for the guys,” Amplo said. “I told the guys, ‘If I told you 20 minutes ago that it will be 10-10 and we had to go to overtime every single one of you would have signed up for it.’”
Redshirt junior K.C. Kennedy won the opening faceoff of the extra period, and it didn’t take long for the Golden Eagles to capitalize. Greenfield buried the ball past sophomore goalkeeper Benny Pugh, to move the Golden Eagles to 3-0.
This marks the first time Marquette has been three games over .500. The Golden Eagles have won an overtime game in every year of their existence. In 2013, Marquette defeated Bellarmine 9-8. Last season the team won two separate overtime games, beating Georgetown 11-10 and St. John’s in double overtime by the same score.
The Golden Eagles are back in action with a pair of games this weekend at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky. Marquette kicks off the weekend festivities Friday afternoon against Detroit, followed up by Jesse King and the Ohio State Buckeyes Sunday.
