After a setback against Villanova last Saturday, Marquette men’s lacrosse (4-8, 3-7 BIG EAST) turned things around Friday afternoon and defeated the St. John’s Red Storm (1-10, 0-10 BIG EAST) 15-14 at DaSilva Field in the regular season finale.
The Golden Eagles now own an 8-1 all-time record against The Johnnies, including a clean 2-0 sweep this season.
MU got out to an early two-goal lead with goals from graduate student midfielder Peter Henkaus and redshirt junior attacker Griffin Fleming.
Twenty seconds after Fleming’s goal at the 12:47 mark of the first quarter, St. John’s offense took over as the Red Storm would score six goals in a span of less than three minutes.
Following graduate student Joe Madsen’s goal at the 7:47 mark of the frame, which put the Red Storm up 6-2, Marquette head coach Andrew Stimmel made a change in net, replacing redshirt junior John Hulsman with redshirt junior Gabe Stein.
MU narrowly outscored SJU 3-2 in the second quarter, but it was not enough to erase the deficit as the Golden Eagles went into halftime down 8-6.
Graduate student Morgan Macko continued the scoring for MU in the second half, as he scored two unassisted goals to tie the game at 8-8.
With 1:07 left in the third quarter, redshirt first-year Devon Cowan tied the game 10-10 with his second goal of the game.
The teams traded blows in the fourth quarter. Fleming gave MU a lead twice in the frame but Red Storm sophomore midfielder Connor Kalmus responded each time with goals of his own to tie it up.
Cowan’s season-long heroics continued in the final minutes as the Mount Laurel, New Jersey, native provided his team with the game-winning goal at the 1:25 minute mark.
Cowan led the way for MU on the afternoon with four goals on eight shots. The Hun School product’s four goals on the day brought him to 30 goals on the season, which was just the fifth time a player has reached that mark.
In addition, Cowan is the the only second-year player to score more than 23 goals in a season at Marquette.
Stein earned the win between the pipes. The Sherman, Connecticut, native made 17 saves and gave up eight goals on the afternoon in about 51 minutes of action. In nine and a half minutes, Hulsman gave up six goals and did not record a save.
Mike Madsen and Joe Madsen led the way for the Red Storm with four goals apiece. Kalmus added three goals on the afternoon.
Marquette finishes the season at 4-8, with a 3-7 record in BIG EAST play.
This article was written by John Leuzzi. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @JohnLeuzziMU.
