Lions Relinquish Late Lead, Fall in Double Overtime

MARS HILL, N.C. – The Mars Hill men's lacrosse team dropped its conference home opener to the visiting Wingate Bulldogs on Saturday, March 05 at Meares Stadium. The Lions could not hold on to a late lead and was defeated by a final score of 7-6 in double overtime. MHU drops to 0-5 overall and 0-1 within the South Atlantic Conference while Wingate picked up its first win on the year to improve to 1-4, 1-0.

Nathan Stewart turned in a good game for the Blue and Gold, collecting a game-high nine ground balls to go along with his three assists and one caused turnover. Dima Ferriera was the catalyst for the Lions offense on the afternoon, scoring four of the six total goals for the home team and grabbing five groundballs.

Paxton Turner and Mike McKee were juggernauts on defense as they both tallied three caused turnovers. Ryan Kearney produced his best game of the season between the pipes for Mars Hill, allowing a season-low six goals while collecting 12 saves.

The Lions held a huge advantage over the Bulldogs on groundballs (30-16) and were able to make due with 16-of-18 clear attempts. Addison Sowell dominated the center X all game, winning 67% of his faceoffs (10-15). However, the Lions failed on all five of their man-up opportunities during the contest.

The Bulldogs jumped out to 1-0 lead in the first quarter following a score from Ryan Ormerod at the 10:14 mark and quickly made it a 2-0 game three minutes later after Ormerod assisted on Robbie Williams' first goal of the season.

From that point it was all Mars Hill. Ferriera picked up his first tally of the contest at the 3:16 mark with a wicked ball that the keeper never laid eyes on. Winding down the final minute of the opening session, A.J. Seip whistled a ball into the back of the net with 17 seconds remaining to knot the match at 2-all. A win by Sowell on the ensuing faceoff allowed Ferriera to notch his second goal only 13 seconds later to give the Lions a 3-2 lead after one.

The second quarter was uneventful for both sides as neither team put another mark on the scoreboard and the Blue and Gold went into the half for the first time on the season with the lead.

A defensive battle followed the two teams from the intermission until Jeremy Sullivan split the pipes two times in less than a minute to give the Bulldogs their first lead since the initial quarter at 4-3. The Lions showed resiliency and Seip netted his second goal followed by Ferriera's hat trick to help MHU regain a one goal lead at 5-4. WU posted a late score to send the match into the fourth, even at five.

Dima quickly gave the Lions the lead back, blasting his fourth and final score with 12:39 remaining in regulation. The Mars Hill defense stood its ground for the remainder of the quarter and the game was all but in hand when a forced shot by the Lions with half a minute to play gave the Bulldogs one last chance to send the contest to overtime. Wingate capitalized on the opportunity and posted the game-tying goal with four seconds left on the clock.

The first overtime did not even see a shot towards either goal, but a costly penalty from the Lions' keeper allowed WU to go man-up and eventually score the golden goal to secure the victory.

Mars Hill will return to action on Saturday, March 12 as it heads to the Queen City to face conference foe Queens University. The first faceoff is scheduled to begin at 2 p.m.