on the clock against Washington & Lee Saturday.
The Roanoke College lacrosse team clinched a tie for first place in the Old Dominion Athletic Conference standings with a 15-14 win over Washington & Lee at Salem’s Kerr Stadium Saturday. The Maroons, W&L and Lynchburg College all have one loss with the ODAC tournament just a week away.
The Maroons have finished their 2017 regular season schedule with a record of 12-3 overall and 8-1 in the conference. W&L comes into the week at 6-1 in the ODAC and Lynchburg is 7-1. The Generals have home games with Randolph(Wed.) and Randolph-Macon(Sat.) while Lynchburg will host Virginia Wesleyan on Saturday. If the favorites win those games a tie-breaker will be needed to determine seeding for next week’s conference tournament.
The Maroons took an early lead Saturday and survived a furious comeback by W&L to pull out the win. Kevin Jackson scored with 33 seconds left to break a 14-14 tie after the Generals came from six goals down to pull even. Jackson finished with six points on the day to become just the 13th player in RC history to reach 200 career points.
Jackson and Cameron Linsley each scored to give RC an early 2-0 lead, before the Generals tied it with 8:50 to play in the first quarter following two goals from Whit Griffin in a 31 second span. Peter Lindley got RC back in front just over a minute later and ignited a 5-1 run that was capped by a Brendan Devane score to make it 7-3 with 12:13 to play in the half.
Robert Schaufler scored to put RC out in front 8-4. Following a 30 minute lighting delay after Schaufler’s goal, RC got goals from Joey Russell and Lindley to push ahead 10-4 with just under seven minutes to go in the first-half.
W&L scored twice to make it a 10-6 game at intermission then got goals from Joe Perrella and Jonathan Henry to make it 10-8 with 12:16 left in third quarter. Roanoke responded with three unanswered goals, including two from Jason Sarro and a Jackson strike to make it a 13-8 game.
Washington and Lee rallied, scoring six of the next seven goals, tying the game 14-14 on a A.J. Witherell tally with 3:43 to play in the game. W&L won the ensuing face off but RC was able to force a shot clock violation to regain possession. Following a timeout Jackson beat his defender and scored to give RC the win.
Jackson finished with six points, while Sarro had four goals and two assists. Linsley and Lindley each finished with two goal for the Maroons.
Chad Fisher had 11 groundballs for RC, Russell had four caused turnovers and Conn Curry had five ground balls and three caused turnovers. Ian Davies finished with 13 saves, including six key stops in the third quarter.