No. 1 Men's Lacrosse Moves to 7-0 For First Time Since 1958
WEST POINT, N.Y. – For the first time in four weeks, the No. 1 team in the country won. The No. 1 Army West Point men's lacrosse team moved to 7-0 with a convincing 18-12 win over Lehigh.
The last time the Black Knights got off to a 7-0 start was 1958. That year is the last time Army won the national championship outright (split in 1959, 1961, 1969). The win was also Army's first at home against Lehigh since 2016 as well.
After the Mountain Hawks went up 1-0 early one, Jackson Eicher fired back to tie the game. Lehigh would go up 2-1 but then it was all Army. Eicher rattled off the next two goals for a first quarter hat trick to make it a 3-2 ball game. Then for the third time this season, Army had a pole goal. This time it was Christian Fournier scoring his first career goal. Next up it was Ryan Sposito's turn, scoring his second of the year to push the Army lead to 5-2. Jacob Morin got in on the action to make it 6-2 after one quarter of play.
Evan Plunkett opened the second quarter with a goal to extend the Army run to 6-0 and make the lead 7-2. The Mountain Hawks wouldn't go away without a fight though, they scored the next three goals to make it 7-5. The Black Knights fired right back though. Five of the next six goals were from Army. Morin let one rip from about 12 yards out to halt the run, then Reese Burek weaved through the defense for a tough goal. Then it was Bailey O'Connor's turn to get on the board. Plunkett followed that up and lastly Eicher closed the half with a goal to take a 12-6 lead into the locker room at halftime.
Lehigh scored first in the second half but Casey Reynolds followed it up with his first career goal. Cal Lambert netted his second of the year just under a minute later to make it a seven goal game. Gunnar Fellows made it 15-8 and after two Lehigh goals, Morin got his hat trick to push the lead back to six before the end of the third.
The game slowed down in the fourth as Army looked to bleed the clock out. Scott Cole scored two goals for Lehigh and Fellows and O'Connor scored for the Black Knights to finish the game 18-12.
Will Coletti was absolutely dominant in the faceoff x, going 22-33 while also getting 10 ground balls. Matt Chess made a career high 13 saves.
The Black Knights were nearly perfect on clear attempts going 13-14, while limiting the Mountain Hawks to 11-18.
Eicher pushed his point total to 32 and he hit the 20 goal mark on the year. Reese Burek moved into a tie for 22nd all time in career points with 133, two off of 20th all-time.
Army will look to keep pace with the 1958 team that began the season 9-0, with a date with Boston U on Friday, March 22 in Boston.
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