STEUBENVILLE – A late fourth-quarter run for the Franciscan's men's lacrosse team fell just short as La Roche held on for a 16-13 win, Wednesday evening.
After a tightly contested 1-1 opening quarter, La Roche went off for an 8-4 second quarter to take a 9-5 lead at halftime. The quarter opened as La Roche and Danny McCartney traded the first two goals in the first two minutes before McCartney gave the Barons the 3-2 lead with his third goal of the game. La Roche scored the next two before McCartney tied the game at 4-4 with 6:58 left before halftime.
The Redhawks then went on a 5-0 run to push their lead to 9-4 with 1:00 left before the break. McCartney got the ball off the face off with for Franciscan and with 30 seconds left, scored to get Franciscan to with four, 9-5, at halftime.
After a scoreless first six minutes of the third, John Aiello scored for the Redhawks to give La Roche a 10-5 lead in the third. McCartney sandwiched a pair of goals around another La Roche goal to cut the lead to 11-7 in favor of the Redhawks. Sophomore
Jerome Harkins scored his second career goal with 1:31 left in the quarter as he pulled the Barons to within three, 11-8, at the end of three quarters.
Junior
Michael Araps scored his first of the game just 33 seconds in to the fourth to cut the lead down to two, 11-9. The Redhawks then scored back-to-back goals to push their lead back to four, 13-9, with 10:32 to play. McCartney got one back just 30 seconds later, but La Roche rattled off three-straight goals to push its lead to 16-10, with 4:25 to play. McCartney halted the run with his ninth goal of the game and kicked off a three-goal run for the Barons, including another one from Harkins and McCartney, but the late run came up just short at La Roche got at stop in the final 26 seconds to seal the 16-13 win.
McCartney led all players with 10 goals, including the first seven for the Barons. Harkins finished the day with a pair of goals and an assist while scooping up a game-best 10 ground balls. Harkins broke the single-game caused turnover record with nine and is now one shy of the Barons career CT record (57). Sophomore
Grant McKeown made six saves in net for the Barons.
Franciscan gets back to action on Saturday when the Barons host Adrian at 1:00 pm at Memorial Field.
