HAVERFORD, Pa. – The Haverford College men's lacrosse team rallied from an early deficit but could not overcome a tough third quarter, falling to visiting Scranton on Wednesday evening by a 14-9 score. The Fords trailed by three early, but knotted the score at the end of the first quarter. However, a 6-1 third quarter advantage for the Royals (1-1) proved too much to overcome over the final 15 minutes.
Sean Mowatt-Larssen scored four goals in his season debut to pace Haverford's attack. Those four goals were just one off his career high which he set during his rookie campaign against Gwynedd Mercy. Gray Pollock also found the back of the cage twice for the first two goals of his career. In the crease, Ethan Donlon made 18 saves, stopping over 56% of the shots he faced while his counterpart denied 16 Haverford shot attempts.
The Royals got the early jump with two goals during opening minute before eventually going up 3-0. However, the Fords answered by using the man advantage as Mowatt-Larssen took a feed from Wyatt Feinberg with eight minutes to play in the quarter. Feinberg made his own break towards goal just over six minutes later. Brian Geffroy's third goal of the season on the second man-up advantage knotted the game at three-all. Haverford finished the opening quarter a perfect 2-for-2 with a man-up while also committing just one penalty the entire contest.
The beginning of the second quarter saw Scranton back on the attack early. Nevertheless, Mowatt-Larssen gave the Fords momentum going into the break with a tally just 41 seconds before the half to set the score at 5-4. Even though the Fords carried seemingly all the confidence into the second half, it was once again the Royals that jumped out in the opening minutes. Pollock tallied his first career goal with 3:11 remaining in the third quarter, but the Royals were still holding an 11-5 edge heading into the final 15 minutes.
Haverford outscored Scranton by a 4-3 margin over the final 15 minutes, but it was not enough to overcome the deficit that the Fords were faced with. Mowatt-Larssen struck just 32 seconds into the period for his hat trick before his fourth and final goal made the score 13-7 with just over six minutes to play. First-year Ben Meyers was credited with his first career point for setting up Mowatt-Larssen's final tally. Pollock's second goal of the night came with 3:33 to play while Jonathan Frost also scored his first career goal just six seconds after Scranton found the back of the net. Frost's goal came immediately following one of his eight face-off victories. That goal proved to be the final strike for either side during the eventual 14-9 final.
Scranton finished the contest with a 54-46 lead in shots during a very fast paced game. Mowatt-Larssen hurled 11 shots towards the cage for the Fords while Spencer Sapir (seven shots), Geffroy (six shots), and Pollock (five shots) all made it a very busy night for the Scranton goalie. Haverford's defense also helped out Donlon's cause with 14 caused turnovers on the evening. Tommy Dandino, Brendan Narko, and Gabe Moon all forced three giveaways from the Royals to lead Haverford's efforts. The Fords also put forth a great effort in chasing down loose possessions on their way to scooping up 46 ground balls. Mowatt-Larssen led Haverford with five ground balls while Frost gathered five. Thirteen different Fords picked up multiple ground balls.
Men's lacrosse will return to action with its first road contest of the year this Saturday at Eastern. That contest is scheduled to get underway at 12 p.m. noon.