Morgan's Career Day Leads Goucher to Win Over FDU Florham
The Goucher College Gophers scored the first two goals of the game and never looked back, defeating FDU Florham, 19-10, to earn a spot in the ECAC Division III Men’s Lacrosse Tournament Championship game.
While the box score does not reflect an evenly played game, shots on goal only favored Goucher by 6, 30-24, and FDU Florham dominated the faceoff circle, winning 23-of-32 faceoffs. The difference in this ECAC semifinal were two Gopher players, attacker Jacob Morgan and goaltender Jack Smith.
Morgan turned in a masterpiece of a game, leading all players with 8 goals, 5 assists, and 13 points, setting career highs in both goals and points and breaking Goucher’s single-game points record in the process. Goucher’s leading goal scorer, Gianni Karam, had 5 goals in the game and Scott Tayman had a hat trick as the trio combined for 16 of the team’s 19 goals.
Smith notched his 10th game this season with double-digit saves, stopping 14 of the 24 shots he faced. The 14 saves were most in a win since February 22nd, when he stopped 18-of-25 in a 9-7 win over McDaniel.
8 different players scored goals for FDU Florham, with two each scored by Brenden Fabin and Luke Dugan. Bud Snyder added 3 assists to his lone goal for a team-high 4 points. Nick Matthew was nearly unstoppable in the faceoff circle, winning 22-of-29 faceoffs, and led all players with 9 ground balls.
Goucher wasted little time getting on the board, as Karam scored the game’s first goal just over a minute in. Milan Temple took a Jack Murdaugh pass to double the Gophers’ lead about a minute and a half later, but Snyder got FDU Florham into the scoring column with his only goal of the game. The teams went quiet for almost 5 minutes before Karam broke through to make it 3-1 with 6:28 left to go in the first quarter. That seemed to open the scoring floodgates as Ronnie Trisuzzi and Justin Perillo scored back-to-back goals for the Devils to tie the game at 3-3 with 4:34 remaining in the opening frame.
Despite the momentum swinging in favor of the hosts FDU Florham, Goucher seemed unfazed. They answered the mini FDU Florham run with three-straight goals, the last two coming just 3 seconds apart from one another, to take a 6-3 lead into the first intermission.
The Devils capitalized on a man-up opportunity to score just 18 seconds into the second quarter, then, after Morgan’s first goal of the day pushed Goucher back up by 3, the FDU Florham got back-to-back goals to make it a 7-6 game with 7:49 left in the half. The game went scoreless for another 5-plus minutes after that, but goals in the final 2 minutes by Goucher’s Morgan and Karam and FDU Florham’s Jarrett Dugenio made it a 9-7 Goucher lead after two.
FDU Florham came out of the halftime break on a mission and used goals by Luke Dugan and Ricky Lewis to tie the game at 9-9 early in the third quarter. Those goals completed what was an extended 6-3 run and had the Devils back in the game.
From there, however, Morgan took over the contest. The junior scored four-straight goals, all coming in two and a half minutes, turning a 9-9 game into a 13-9 Goucher advantage. The scoring run continued into the 4th quarter and by the time it finished, the Gophers had rattled off 7 straight goals with Morgan having a hand in 6 of them, scoring 5 and assisting on another.
While no lead is safe when you have a strong faceoff performer like FDU Florham has, time was against the Devils to post a comeback. Fabin scored his second of the game with just over 11 minutes left, stopped the Goucher scoring run and giving a sliver of hope to his team. But Goucher again responded, this time with three goals, including an exclamation point goal from Morgan, to cap off a remarkable performance and seal the victory for the Gophers.
Goucher advances to Sunday’s ECAC Division III Men’s Lacrosse Championship game where they’ll play Westminster College. Starting time for that game will be announced at a later date.