MOUNT BERRY, Ga. - The Birmingham-Southern men's lacrosse team jumped to third in the conference with a massive win over Berry on Sunday as the team hunts for a top seed in the SAA tournament.
How it happened
After his record-tying performance on Friday, Josh Tamarkin continued his excellent goal-scoring form with a finish inside the opening 1:33 of the game. The Vikings replied with the equalizer two minutes later, but two consecutive Panther goals via Kyle Winter and Patton Hunter gave the visitors a 3-1 lead with 3:30 to go in the first period. Berry scored late in the quarter, but BSC left the first 15 minutes up 3-2.
After a tight first period, the Panthers turned their play up a notch. Goals from Cameron Herd and Joey Amatulli inside the first four minutes of the second quarter gave the Panthers their largest lead of the game. Berry went on to score the game's next goal, but then BSC completely took over. A 4-0 run in less than six minutes gave BSC a dominant 9-3 lead heading into the break. Over the run, the Panther defense was phenomenal allowing only four total shots in the final 9:54 of the quarter.
The Vikings won the first eight minutes of the second half 3-1 and cut the deficit to four with 6:23 to go. Momentum seemed to be on the side of the home team, but BSC continued to be resilient. After being pushed back, the Panthers produced three straight goals courtesy of Micah Finotti, Cameron Herd, and Joey Amatulli to take a big 13-6 lead heading into the final period.
With only 15 minutes to play, the Panthers needed to close out the Vikings to move up the conference standings. BSC set up to protect their lead, and they did just that. Both teams managed no goals halfway through the quarter until Berry ended the stalemate with 7:55 to play. However, the goal would be the lone Viking goal in the period after the BSC defense forced six turnovers. With 3:30 remaining, Raymond Fracchia put the icing on the cake with a goal to solidify the massive SAA win. The Panthers went on to win 14-7 and move past Berry into third in the conference standings.
Game notes
- Kyle Winter and Joshh amarkin led the team with four points
- Cade Marino scooped three ground balls and caused three turnovers
- Nathan Pepe had 16 saves and allowed only seven goals in the BSC net
Records
Birmingham-Southern 9-3 (3-2 SAA), Berry 6-7 (3-2 SAA)
Up Next
BSC will be back home for their final regular season game of 2024 on Friday, April 12 at 4:00 p.m. against Rhodes.
