Comeback Falls Short Against Cougars

Columbia, Mo.--The William Penn men's lacrosse team came up just short in its comeback effort, falling to Columbia 10-9 in non-conference play Thursday.

In a contest that featured two evenly-matched teams, WPU (9-5) and CC (5-3) were tied in the shots category, 44-44.  The Statesmen edged the Cougars 12-11 in face-off wins, but committed one more turnover (13-12).  The visitors also lost the ground ball battle 33-27.

The home team got on the board first and rushed out to a 3-0 lead.  The navy and gold were finally able to stop the bleeding late in the opening quarter with an unassisted goal by Wyatt Christensen (Fr., Madison, Wis., Biology).

The sides exchanged goals over the next couple of minutes with Breck Putizer (So., Minneapolis, Minn., Kinesiology) scoring off a pass from Jeff Kohl (Fr., Gilbert, Ariz., Business Management). Colombia unfortunately extended its lead back to three at 5-2 at the end of the first quarter.

The Cougars pushed another score across in the early seconds of the second stanza, but only 37 seconds later, Kenny Bohney (Fr., Moorhead, Min.) hit the netting via Kohl.

The home team then took control with three unanswered goals for a commanding 9-3 edge midway through the second stanza.

William Penn did not waver, though, and produced a pair of late goals from Christensen (helper from Putzier) and Putzier (unassisted) to trim the deficit to 9-5 entering intermission.

After combining for a flurry of first-half goals, the squads' defenses stepped to the forefront in the third quarter with Putzier (unassisted) tallying the lone goal.

The defenses continued to stand tall for the first six minutes of the final period as well, but Christensen finally broke the seal with an unassisted goal at the 8:52 mark.  He then scored with 3:48 left and Tim Pennington (Jr., Boise, Idaho, Biology) completed the comeback 36 ticks later without any help to knot the score at 9-9.

Unfortunately, the Cougars denied the Statesmen from avenging last year's conference tournament loss as they scored with 1:20 to go and held on for the win.  WPU won the ensuing faceoff and Putzier took a shot, but it was high and the navy and gold saw their season-high four-game winning streak come to an end.

Christensen led William Penn with four goals, while Putzier managed three goals and a helper.

Ryan Swarts (Jr., Boise, Idaho, Industrial Technology) was unavailable for the contest, but Nick Hajnasiewicz (So., Minneapolis, Minn., Kinesiology) performed admirably in his stead, finishing 12-for-16 in the faceoff circle.  Eric Garigan (Jr., Tucson, Ariz., Poltical Science) tallied 14 saves in the loss.

"Obviously a tough loss but sometimes you need an out of conference heart breaker like this to really sharpen up for the post season." Head Coach Luke Christiansen said. "Our slow start ultimately doomed us and a few key injuries made a big difference. The team made a great comeback and we will be able to learn from the mistakes we made down the stretch to win the big games when they really count."

Next Up: William Penn returns to Oskaloosa Saturday to face Clarke in Heart action starting at 3 p.m.